Shattered
Sweet serenity. A luxury for the soul. Where have the days gone? Where did they go?
There we were, the two of us. Tight as kittens in a basket. So charged with the pulse of possibility. Joy riding on the breeze
You were so fair. Fair of face. Fair of mind. Fair.
I was so much darker. Dark in the light. Dark as charcoal. Black.
But I had you. You guided me through impossible waters. You were my torch.
"Gina?" My name had a lilt when it floated on your voice.
"Yes," I always answered, even when the word was a rhetorical chant.
"Are we going?"
"Of course we are." We were dead set on exploration. Dead set on fun. Dead set.
"Yes!" Always a yes. You had me.
What was it, then? Was it the gray? Was it the swift flirting with disaster that had me by the throat?
I watched you dance in the moonlight. I held your hand when we crossed the divide. We were children, then we were adults, and it was different.
You had wild ambition. I had such reverence.
You had hope. I had your friendship.
Was it enough?
Did it heal me?
Your easy manner. Your freckled grin. Your fiery red, bouncing curls. Your exuberance.
I was under your spell.
That’s how I explained it.
In the dead of night, lights shine in a single tunnel. A tunnel of light. There are no alternative parameters, yet there are shadows in that glow.
Such weird things haunt me. You know? Like the way your spangled purse caught the light. All glitter and sparkle. Your crazy hair in the wind. The way you sang along to the tunes on the radio. You had a good voice. A soprano, no less.
I liked the alcohol. You drank the lemonade.
I had the driver’s license. You were so proud.
You chose the party. I went along.
Of course, it was you. I just went along.
The sway of the night burned bright. The laughter echoed in the clink of glass on glass.
Then… I don’t really remember. Not at all.
People whisper between themselves and behind their hands when I walk by.
What do they say, I wonder?
What I hear—the words I hear against the shattering, are, "Gina. Gina. Ginaaaaa."
And then there’s just nothing. A silence of the soul.
Art generated using Dall-E-2
