I’M LONELY. THE WORLD AROUND me moves, breathes, lives but I’m more disconnected from it than ever before. Knowing Ryan could still be alive and out there somewhere. Knowing when the sun heats my skin it could be shining down, warming his in the same moment, makes my heart race and sorrow takes me in its fierce grip. You still mourn the loss of someone even if they could have lived; if they’re lost to you the pain is still as severe as if they died. When the wind whispers through the trees, I imagine it’s him calling to me but he never appears. He hides from me in the shadows of my dreams. And even when my mind lets me venture into the darker corners to reach for him with my arms outstretched, my fingertips searching, I still cannot find him.
I love my parents and miss them now that I’m away at college. But it’s a dull throb, unlike the ache from missing Ryan; that pain is a presence constantly under my skin, scratching and burning in my veins. College gives me some freedom from my dad’s ever-watchful eye, and some days it doesn’t take as much effort to just breathe. Today is not one of those days. I’m suffocating under the weight of my own battle with who I am now. So much time has passed but the longing to be back in his existence is as fresh as an open wound, bleeding out my soul as an offering. Ryan turned the lights out and taught me to see in the darkness. Nobody sees me the way he does and I’m hopelessly pursuing the hunter in him. I want to be found or preyed on; if that’s what I am, his prey.
Mom doesn’t talk about the past. She doesn’t believe that Ryan is anything but empty and thinks he was using me to hurt them. She told me I was a victim of his, just like her. But there are parts missing in me too, and I can’t write a future when I look towards it and only see a grey sea of nothingness.
I know I mean something to him; he saved me in more ways than one. The emotions inside me are discombobulated about what I feel for Ryan. He’s my uncle but I never knew him as that, yet a connection tethered us nonetheless and I love him. I know all the things he’s done and yet I still love him. I envisioned the blood and massacre as I was told the stories of his depravity. I know a monster lives within him but the man who protected me, the man who I spent time with lives inside him also. Does loving him make me wrong inside, make me a monster also? If it does then I will do what he did and embrace it. I didn’t realize just how detached I really was from the world around me until he entered and then abruptly left mine, leaving me floating through life but not feeling a part of it.
I LOOK DOWN AT MY sketchbook; Ryan’s image looks back up at me and a shiver ripples through me like a wave on a choppy sea. He’s all I’ve drawn since that night he disappeared amongst the flames.
My skin tingles with unease when I sense eyes on me. A shadow falls over me, blocking out the sun, and I look up to see a guy who’s slightly out of breath; sucking at the air, breathing harshly. He reaches out, holding a piece of paper. I take it from him and he turns and leaves. I look around; the campus is busy, yet I heard and sensed no one until he approached, drawing me from my own obscure world. A sigh pushes past my lips. If this is from Hannah, the bitch across the hall, I’m going to lose my shit. Hannah is my dorm neighbor and the party girl of the campus. She took an instant dislike to me when I arrived and her boyfriend, Tom, helped me in the corridor when my bag broke and all my art supplies rolled away. He became a little too friendly, with his hands on my ass while helping me to my feet, and she noticed and made me pay for it with her bitchy comments and no invites to her parties. I don’t want to go to them anyway but her disdain makes me practically a leper to the other girls in our dorm. Mix that with my less-than-friendly moods and I’m practically a walking virus to them all.
I look down at
I love my parents and miss them now that I’m away at college. But it’s a dull throb, unlike the ache from missing Ryan; that pain is a presence constantly under my skin, scratching and burning in my veins. College gives me some freedom from my dad’s ever-watchful eye, and some days it doesn’t take as much effort to just breathe. Today is not one of those days. I’m suffocating under the weight of my own battle with who I am now. So much time has passed but the longing to be back in his existence is as fresh as an open wound, bleeding out my soul as an offering. Ryan turned the lights out and taught me to see in the darkness. Nobody sees me the way he does and I’m hopelessly pursuing the hunter in him. I want to be found or preyed on; if that’s what I am, his prey.
Mom doesn’t talk about the past. She doesn’t believe that Ryan is anything but empty and thinks he was using me to hurt them. She told me I was a victim of his, just like her. But there are parts missing in me too, and I can’t write a future when I look towards it and only see a grey sea of nothingness.
I know I mean something to him; he saved me in more ways than one. The emotions inside me are discombobulated about what I feel for Ryan. He’s my uncle but I never knew him as that, yet a connection tethered us nonetheless and I love him. I know all the things he’s done and yet I still love him. I envisioned the blood and massacre as I was told the stories of his depravity. I know a monster lives within him but the man who protected me, the man who I spent time with lives inside him also. Does loving him make me wrong inside, make me a monster also? If it does then I will do what he did and embrace it. I didn’t realize just how detached I really was from the world around me until he entered and then abruptly left mine, leaving me floating through life but not feeling a part of it.
I LOOK DOWN AT MY sketchbook; Ryan’s image looks back up at me and a shiver ripples through me like a wave on a choppy sea. He’s all I’ve drawn since that night he disappeared amongst the flames.
My skin tingles with unease when I sense eyes on me. A shadow falls over me, blocking out the sun, and I look up to see a guy who’s slightly out of breath; sucking at the air, breathing harshly. He reaches out, holding a piece of paper. I take it from him and he turns and leaves. I look around; the campus is busy, yet I heard and sensed no one until he approached, drawing me from my own obscure world. A sigh pushes past my lips. If this is from Hannah, the bitch across the hall, I’m going to lose my shit. Hannah is my dorm neighbor and the party girl of the campus. She took an instant dislike to me when I arrived and her boyfriend, Tom, helped me in the corridor when my bag broke and all my art supplies rolled away. He became a little too friendly, with his hands on my ass while helping me to my feet, and she noticed and made me pay for it with her bitchy comments and no invites to her parties. I don’t want to go to them anyway but her disdain makes me practically a leper to the other girls in our dorm. Mix that with my less-than-friendly moods and I’m practically a walking virus to them all.
I look down at
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