i get it—the fire inside you keeps you warm, as comforting as a cauterized wound. pain means little to you now as long as it comes from the outside. after all, it bears the biggest difference: it heals.

you fan the flame of vengeance like it keeps you alive. you may feel you’ve lost everything else, but hate is not all that is left. there is family, not just borne of blood, but of blood shed and spared— we save each other.

i see you past your darkness. darling, take off the mask. let the smoke clear. can’t you feel your fire within burning you, too? douse it before it turns you to ash; i cannot hold you that way.

if you can forgive just one person, let it be yourself. tell the child that still lives inside you his fear is wrong: he is loved and he will never be abandoned again. he will see it when we stand together atop the embers.

— j.a.

She hadn't come to school

in so long. Finally I went

to go see her.

Her body looked frail

even more so than the bed 

that struggled to hold her.

It looked as if it would break

if she let anything else

come and be a burden

on her shoulders.

Someone so young

shouldn't have so much

to hold onto.

All she wanted to do 

was to let go.

She finally did,

but her words before

seemed so sad. 

She let her burdens go, 

let them fall off one by one

dripping from her mouth,

sung from her lips

leaving her tongue exhausted.

And that bed became lighter

and lighter.

And no one could convince her

to hold on, not even for

a moment longer.

She reached out 

and told me to hold out my hand.

She let one of her burdens slip 

through her fingers and into mine,

and I felt her grief and I didn't ask

her to stay.

It would have been selfish

of me to do so.

Her hand slipped out of mine

in one smooth, fluid motion.

Her body turned cold

and stiff, and in that

stiffness, a smile poured

itself onto her lips

and she was at peace.

She flew away.

The light in her eyes dimmed,

eyes that could do nothing but see,

stopped seeing.

Ears that could do nothing but hear,

hushed themselves and relieved themselves

of their duties.

And we said farewell to that body, 

that body that could not hear it.

And that bed soon became empty,

empty of the promises we had kept.

Of the dreams we had dreamed together.