With Broken Wings (2013)

Mending

A short little story loosely related to what I am going through and how I feel. This is how I have gotten through it, AM getting through it. With the help of my amazing cousins and extended family. Just know that if you have lost someone or are going through a tough time, you're not alone and you never have to be. You can always talk to me, if no one else, and I promise to make no judgements. I'm just here to help you out in any way that I can. Stay strong, you beautiful and amazing people. You deserve a little happiness, and in time I'm sure it will find you. Don't give up hope because one day it will be your turn to shine. <3-Meghan

I closed my eyes and let the breeze blow through my hair as I gripped the railing tighter, knuckles burning sligtly as the rough wood dug into my palms. I hadn't thought that this would be easy, no I knew that it wouldn't be, but I hadn't expected it to hurt this much either. I sighed, trying to hold back the tears as the wind carressed my cheeks.

I gripped the wood tighter, feeling the sharp pain of splinters sticking into my soft palms but ignored it. Usually I would freak out, I was terrified of getting splinters and did my best to avoid situations like this that could cause them, but right now I didn't care. Splinters were unimportant, right now there was a pain in my heart screaming to be let out.

My lungs burned and I realized that I had been holding my breath. I took a deep breath, slowly peeling my eyes open to stare at the horizon in front of me. I was looking out at the lake, barely seeing the beautiful sunset reflecting off of the endless pool of rippling blue the stretched out as far as the eye could see. I wasn't noticing the green grass that led to the steps that would have taken me to the serene water, or the fire burning away in the firepit to my left.

All I could see was his face, even when I opened my eyes. It never went away, I couldn't get it out of my mind no matter how hard I tried. His twinkling eyes, his gorgeous smile, his loud rumbling laugh the boomed like thunder through the room. My heart seemed to twinge, feeling like someone had taken a red-hot jagged blade and punctured right through it. Then thrown some alcohol on the flame and rubbed lemon juice and salt on the wound.

I felt like I'd been hit by a bus, trampled by an elephant, not slept for a month, had a family of hobgoblings tap-dancing on my forehead with jackhammers and had my heart ripped out by someone's metal clawerd hands and left to bleed out slowly. It was the worst kind of pain. But knowing that I wasn't the only one suffering, that the people just inside the door behind me felt it too, that was what really broke me.

They didn't deserve this. I wished that I could just hug their pain away, wipe the tears from the faces and promise them that everything would be okay. But I couldn't even give them that much because hugs helped, sure, but they couldn't cure pain and wiping tears away only left room for more to follow. As for everything being okay, I couldn't promise that because I wasn't certain that it would be.

Even if it all turned out okay in the end, it was going to be a long and hard journey to get there. I wished that I could have been here more, been there for them more when they needed me. I hated living so far away. Especially lately. I let the tears break free as I thought about how much I hated what this was doing to them, to us. They were falling apart and there wasn't much I could do about it but be there.

I sucked in a breath as I pictured all of the faced stained with tears but still forcing a smile, all gathered around in the living room, staring blankly at the tv set. Some sat on the leather three person sofa against the windows at my back, three more curled up on the coarse white one against the floor to ceiling windows on my right, and still more on the last sofa, this one covered in stitched pitcures of birds, across from the last.

The low wooden table, scattered with newspapers, books, half-empty bowls, glasses of lemonade or iced tea and various electronic devices sitting firmly in the middle of the room. A few people scattered on the floor beside the dogs as the football game continued to blare from the speakers all around them. No one really watching it, keeping score. No one really seeing, caring anymore.