CommonCurtians

Your T-shirt finally got a hole in it today. Right at the left armpit where the seams meet. My mother has been telling me it will rip for weeks and I knew It would eventually at the rate I wear it. Naively I had a little hope it wouldn’t. It’s so easy to make up a little world in my head where your clothes are made with magic and they’ll last as long as I hold them. But now I can fit three fingers in a hole in your shirt that wasn’t there when you wore it and saying that out loud makes me close to tears.

Again, it’s a naive way of thinking but I wish you could just last forever. Your sister came by a month ago and got the last of your things. The shirt was shoved in my pillow case where it lives when it’s not on my body and she most definitely didn’t care enough to double check anything in the bag I handed her on my front porch. It’s not that I intentionally kept the shirt. I feel a bit guilty even now as I wear it, but I just forgot about it mixed up in the whirlwind of birthday presents and hoodies you “accidentally” left behind, and by the time I realized I still had it I couldn’t bring myself to look at her again.

If I close my eyes and really concentrate it still smells like you. It’s faint and I may just be making it up but it’s so distinctly you I can’t let it go.

It’s been four months and people still apologize when they mention your name around me. I still haven’t seen your mom since the funeral and I may never be able to because I know when I look at her I’ll just see your eyes. I was allowed to go back to school two months ago but I still get stares and can hear the hush of whispers as I walk down the hall.

Maybe the hole in the shirt is sign from god or something. I have a strong feeling that’s what you’d say. A sign I need to start healing. You would say it and out you hand on my knee and I would roll my eyes. Most of my time lately has been spent thinking about what you’d be doing in any situation.

I keep squinting and trying to look through the clouds.

I keep pushing through layer after layer of a thick haze that’s engulfing me.

I keep thinking I see a ray or light through the smog.

I keep imagining what life is like above these clouds where the air is clear.

I keep looking up.

her voice has been twisted and mangled till it’s just a sister of what once was.

her head never seems to stop screaming and her hands always shake.

she’s spinning on a wheel that won’t let her off.

Looking up there at emptiness seems too simple.

It’s just a small favor I promise I won’t ask again

But I’ve called and knocked and cried and tried everything I know to get them to listen.

Maybe I’ve been wishing on a satellite all along.