Mischief Managed

Don’t trust what you see, even salt looks like sugar.

After the heart stops, there are seven minutes of brain activity left. Seven minutes, four hundred twenty seconds, where the brain replays all the best moments in your life, as if to make the journey to extinction easier. Everyone sees different things; some see summer days at amusement parks, while some see quiet nights with a book. Some see senior prom while some see their thirty first birthday. I saw you. I saw the glisten of your midnight hair and the gleam of your starbound eyes. Six minutes left. I saw the flecks of hazelnut that pepper your cheeks, and dance around dimples too proud to go unnoticed. Those adorable little dimples compliment your shy smile so perfectly. Five minutes left. They always were a feature you were proud of.. they even showed when you frowned. Four minutes left. I saw the regret of the words I wish my tongue molded for you; I saw the shame of the ones my tongue did. Three minutes left. I saw the glass ladder we tiptoed up; I saw the cracks on the rungs where your ultimatums pierced through. Two minutes left. I saw the glitters of the shards when every bolt fell apart. They were beautiful, resembling something like a million diamonds floating down from the sky. It reminded me of us with how quickly they dissipated after hitting the ground. One minute left. It’s a shame. We crawled and we climbed, and in the end, we made it to a place just shy of happiness. Zero.

I get way too sensitive when I get attached to someone. I can detect the slightest change in the tone of their voice, and suddenly I’m spending all day trying to figure out what I did wrong.