Inspiration, however mundane, sweeps you off your feet. Today, I’m inspired by the emptiness inside. It almost catches me off guard at times. I’ve just graduated high school, and where I should be feeling excitement, relief, and pride, I feel dread and regret. I desperately wish to wake up to any day prior to that fated graduation. All of the people who were so readily available have seemingly vanished into thin air. I can’t even remember where they went, maybe they’re all on summer vacation somewhere? There’s something so romantic about being a high school senior, about the late nights in fields, the house parties. Cosplaying adulthood, wearing it as a costume one can take off any time. The drivers licenses, liquor and cigarettes, are all a convincing facade. But we get to come home at the end of the night and peel it all off. The delusion only makes the romance feel that much more compelling. High on adventuring, we declare we are eternal. We will stay in touch, we will overcome everything. We will still be in our twenties and thirties, drunk on pool tables and slow dancing in the rain. We are only beautiful because it is ending, we have never looked lovelier to each other because we are doomed. It’s a truth too heavy even for those summer nights to shoulder.
I’m scared of it. The chill, deep in my bones, alludes to a truth even heavier. The worst is yet to come. There is no happily ever after. I remain exactly what I am; a fragment. There is no other place for me. I was made for high school, the costumes and the acting. The morbid romance of things dying, all of that doomed loveiness. I am still damned, but this horror is far less amorous. Living an empty life as the world moves on without you, is the full extent of this heavy truth. The show is over, I’ve been stripped of my costume, and will now sit on the curb outside the theatre forever.
Literary Musings 