sunveil

and as i stood there on that train home i realized, all of these people have gone through lifetimes of their own.

every single one of these people i have never met and may never speak to or even see again, have all gone through love, trauma, joy, grief, and so much more on their own. some have been hurt, some have done the hurting, some are yet to experience such suffering, and yet they've all come to cross paths with me today on this train to exist in the universe i perceive, until i step off this train.

in that very same moment, all of these people will cease to exist, possibly forevermore. to be "lucky" enough to continue existing in my universe is to condemn oneself to knowing me.

this would come as a small spark of recognition in my neural network if we were ever to cross paths again. you would wave to me, i would wave to you, you would smile, and i would be gone again, stepping off the train to find my own reflection in the reminder of mortality.

i'll be old enough to drink soon. two-hand-counted calendar pages will be crumpled up and discarded like they never existed in the first place before i turn my age. time, sitting in the garbage like an old geezer — feeling like trash with broken and beaten knees. and when i can drink, i won't need to pretend i'm something i'm not. i'll be too old to play make-believe with the rusted numbers you find on the doors in rundown motels— too old to be a laughing child, and too young to gaze through the looking glass of a fake maturity. i can hold it up to my eye as tears pool into the frame of it, but i am made blind by what i cannot comprehend, my pupil turning to cloud. i am blind — sat in the corner — crying out to my mother for help. reminding myself,

i will always be a kid. try as hard as i may to be something else, i am not subject to change. i am a chameleon incarnate and i hide behind myself, changing colors to blend into the pale beige walls. i am hunted, by men with guns aimed where my heart holds my body like a lover, beating faster in my chest, like sweaty palms to an old hand drum in an empty room. my hands are beaded necklaces too. sitting in my hand and down my neck. afraid of the violence they're inspiring within me. i grasp at the clinking broken glass of the window broken by a dark red brick from my now unfamiliar childhood home— putting it back together— trying. my hands are a dark red too. no matter how much i tell you i'm trying, everything is lying.

i'll tell you i'm a different person now. flowers once vibrant with warm reds, oranges, and yellows bow down to the weight on their necks. their backs are broken— they will never get up again, and they are the same as they always were. something spineless. i too, am a worm, slowly inching through a field of grass too tall to navigate. i leave breadcrumb trails of myself in the past to look back at, tearing off calloused skin layer by layer — onions on the floor. i'll convince myself i was the ugly duckling, now a dancing swan, but i do not bear an ounce of love in my glass for anyone— only a smooth, molten brass that will burn away my insides until i am hollow. a ghost in a shell i fail to recognize, i will sing broken and pitiful songs. today i met who i'm gonna be from now on.

today i looked into the seven years of bad luck again, and didn't even begin to recognize my own face. who is this man? how could one ever become so willing to dig deeper into his own grave, with dirt on his face, blood on his fingernails, and blisters on his palms? rust has grown in the hinges of the door that remembers the feeling of my tender, broken hands, and i'll keep pulling the handle like a hand into a warm kiss, until the door comes off its hinges and i can no longer open it. until i can stand here without fear in the doorway next to a table, with tears in my eyes, as i stand before myself, looking at me. i'm looking at him. and he's a piece of shit.

The room was dim in the late afternoon, where the glowing of the sun was thin and gentle, slipping through the blinds and settling where it could. Nothing in the room felt arranged — how could it be? Things were just where they ended up. Everything ends up here. A chair pulled away from the wall slightly. A stack of mail still left unopened atop a dresser full of someone's personality. A photo frame turned face down, to hide the cracked glass from a few months ago when it had fallen from the nightstand and neither of them had bothered to fix it.

She lay in the bed on her side, with her hands resting together near her right cheek like they always did when she slept. Her breathing was shallow but followed a steady rhythm, with each breath taking a small but noticeable effort. He sat next to her, close enough that his knee brushed against the mattress when he laughed. He sat still in silence next to her. After all these years, he had learned that stillness was a kind of care too — stillness, in a world where everything is constantly shapeshifting.

The house settled too, and made its usual sounds. Pipes rattled as they shifted, and something electrical in the next room was humming faintly. Outside, a car passed slowly, then another, and another. The world hadn't stopped for anyone, and it wasn't going to do so for any reason — something so comforting, and yet so inevitable it makes you want to laugh. He looked at her face without trying to memorize it, trying to think about what it would be like to see her for the first time one more time. He already knew everything there was to know about the shape and the colour. The way the edges of her mouth would hide in her dimples whenever she smiled — really smiled. The way that same smile slowly drew lines on her face more than anything else did. She used to say the lines on her face made her look tired, and he always thought that they made her look honest.

They had shared this room for years, though it hadn't always looked like this. Once, when they first bought the house, there had been curtains that bled light in the sun. Once, there had been a crib in the corner for a short while, and then it too was gone. Once, there was a ridiculous floor lamp by the door, that would be mistaken for an intruder in the dark far too many times, and it too would eventually go. Everything had come and gone. So had versions of themselves. The room adjusted itself quietly, like that one awkward friend, as old rooms tend to do, and his mind drifted. It wasn't because he wanted to leave, no — it was because this was how he had always loved her. This was how it had always worked out. One thought leading gently into another, like stepping stones over a river. Even if sometimes they fell into the river together, laughing at each other.

He thought about their trip to LA. How they had almost missed their flight and arrived late, realizing too slowly what they had forgotten. The way that they stood in the airport with their bags sitting between their feet, as they checked, double checked, and triple checked that they really had forgotten to book the hotel. They had. He thought about the way she laughed first, shaking her head at her own carelessness with a smile — and how that smile made it all feel okay, even if it was her job to book the hotel. They spent a majority of the night sitting close on a bench, trying to pretend their asses weren't going numb from how uncomfortable it was. In the morning, they bought overpriced coffee that was far too bitter, and walked the city like it had been waiting for them all night. They talked about that trip to everybody they knew, and most importantly to each other, for years and years afterward. Not because it was the best trip, not because they enjoyed it, but because it felt like how they were — how they had always been. Unprepared. Foolish. Willing to figure it all out together.

Other memories arrived more quietly, like the ferry in the early morning fog. Tired Sunday afternoons, when neither of them felt like doing anything all day. Dinners eaten too late. Arguments that started with nothing and ended with exhaustion instead of resolution. Apologies didn't need to be spoken out loud. The way that they learned, slowly, how to forgive each other without asking for anything in return — that one time they shared a hug as she hid her face in his chest.

He thought about the dog they had. How small it had been the day they brought it home. How quickly it had learned the sound of them pulling into the driveway. How wrong the house had felt after it was gone. It was always too empty. Too clean. She had kept reaching down to pet something that wasn't there out of habit. They didn't talk much those few weeks. They didn't need to — grief had a funny way of taking up all the space words and laughter usually filled.

They had lost again and again, though they didn't always name them as losses. Years that fell through the cracks unnoticed. Plans that never quite worked out. Things they meant to say earlier. But they had always stayed, through everything. Even when staying was quieter than leaving, and even when it felt so uncertain he'd wish he was a psychic who could know everything before it happened.

Her breathing changed — not stopped, just different. He noticed the shift and acknowledged it calmly. The same way that one would notice the sun starting to hide behind the clouds outside a half-cracked window. He leaned forward, his knees pressing softly against the side of the mattress, and rested his forehead against her pale hands. It was warm. It felt the same as it always had.

He didn't even begin to think about what would come next. He didn't think about how the house would sound without her in it, or which objects would suddenly feel gut-wrenching and unbearable to touch or even look at. Those thoughts could wait, like a castaway at the shore watching the sun set. All he could know was that this moment — this calm — still belonged to them. He stayed where he was. He listened. He let everything be what it was, and felt the way the room held him close. The way her weak smile still made his chest feel warm.

And when the quiet finally settled into something that felt more permanent, he swallowed his breath, laughed softly to himself, and then whispered quietly, "You'd hate how quiet the house sounds already…"