still still still
And she still writes to him everyday, just to see if he’s alive. And though she never sends them, he answers in her mind and that’s how she knows he’s breathing. Because if his heart ever stopped she would feel it in her chest. And she thinks about the attic and everyone else’s attic and every modern house that’s built without them. And maybe Anne Frank was lucky. Maybe Angela Chase was right. And maybe I don’t believe that Sal Paradise was real. Because Angela was me and that’s the only thing I’ll ever know existed for a fact. Maybe he never did, my leaning boy. My slanted skeleton, my blue-eyed ghost. But she still writes to him. And I guess that she isn’t me anymore. She was me. And now I am me, but I am no longer she. That part is past now. And I feel free without that corpse on my shoulder, but sometimes I do miss having that weight to carry. When you carry bones for so long you can’t help but miss them when they’re gone. And I still know what she means about the way he closes his eyes and how that could mean so much. And for it to hurt. I know what that means. And I’m grateful to know what life feels like. And I’m happy now, knowing where I’ve been and where I am but not where I’m going. I just don’t worry these days. The tides can travel without the moon.
