Joey

“It looks like this:
Pink, mostly.
Puffs of orange just below.
The fiercest yellow way ahead, far, far ahead.
Red slashed all across.
All of it fading to blue, getting deeper and deeper as you go out.
Underneath all that is the ocean, reflecting it back. All I can hear are the waves and the seagulls, all this calmness surrounded by an eruption of colors, deep strong colors.
I only saw this once in real life. We stayed up late and walked to Mill Point Beach in the middle of the night. There was no light anywhere and we sat, blind, and we said nothing. We didn’t speak for the longest time, just listened to the ocean.
Then the blackness started melting.
This is what it looked like when the sun finally came up. I was so tired, we both were, but we did it anyway.
We only saw it once because there wasn’t much after that, and now we can’t ever go again.
This is what I see when I want to remember the good parts. This is what I see when I think of him, when I let myself think of him.”
― Rafi Mittlefehldt, It Looks Like This

“We're going to be okay,' I repeated to him.
If things get hard again, I'll carry him. And he'll carry me.
And we'll be okay.”
― Erik J. Brown, All That’s Left in the World

“The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife. I don’t want to wait around to see what comes next for me I’m this tragic story I’m living. I open up one of my father’s unused razors and cut into my wrist like he did, slit in a curve until it smiles so everyone will know I died for happiness”
― Adam Silvera, More Happy Than Not

“But then I look at him; I hear his laugh, I see his smile, and the darkness melts away. Then I do have hope--even just for a little while--because I know that there is something in this world I can fight for. Something I will fight for if I have to.”
― Erik J. Brown, All That’s Left in the World