Esoteric // h.s

uno

Roslyn - Bon Iver & St. Vincent

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It hurt.

It hurt so badly.

It was like an I was being tortured slowly. Hands shaking and stomach uneasy. My mind felt slower, slipping through different states of consciousness and my heart had shattered. It stung. It burned.

Walking up to the podium, my heels didn't hesitate to sink to the grass, having to take out extra energy I did not posses to walk across the aisle until I had gotten to the front of the mass of people. Smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles out my dress I pulled out my speech.

My chest was about to collapse into my stomach at any moment and here I was in front of hundreds, about to talk about something I didn't want to talk about. Not even think about. But I couldn't abandon the people I had left.

Clearing my voice I started to speak. My voice quivered, on the edge of a mental breakdown I know I wouldn't be able to recover from.

"Come un raggio di sole hai illuminato la mia vita. Like a ray of light you have warmed my life. My momma always said to hold these world close to me, and to give them to someone special with my whole entire heart. To trust them, to love them, and to cherish them."

Chest heavy with grief I took a breath, hands gripping the sides of the wooden stand like a vice.
I was sure I would leave marks, but it was keeping me at bay so I continued to do so.

"I met Jonah on the first day of freshman year. He had been thrown in the office for talking back to a teacher. He was known for being a smart ass. I had just moved from Italy with my family, and New York was new to me. Everything was fast, there was no time to stop and think and ask questions. He had been let off with a warning and simple instructions to show me around. I don't think I had met anyone so charming in my entire life."

My audience laughed with tearful smiles. Jonah's mom had a small smile on her face along with his father. They hadn't smile in a while considering the circumstances and I felt a small hit of pride, but it disappeared when I remembered where I was.

Why I was here.

What I was doing.

"We had become almost best friends in a matter of weeks, it seems we had connected together with everything we did. I'm sure Jonah's mother was tired of seeing me come over her house everyday after school."

Another audience chuckle.

"I remember one day we had been walking in the hall and someone had called Jonah something terrible. I didn't hesitate to flip out, calling them names only Italians would understand. And I was young and naive, and I was confused as to why. Why someone, how someone, could be so awful to the boy who had become my entire world. How someone could be so cruel to someone so kind, and generous, and loving. And although I have grown significantly in the past three years, I still do not understand."

I gulp, throat feeling dry like sandpaper. Funny how my throat could be in such a drought, when the tears from my eyes were equivalent to the amount of rain in a hurricane.

"When my mother past away from cancer the end of freshman year, I felt as if my life had fallen apart. She had passed one day in her sleep, out of nowhere. One day she was there cooking, cleaning, going to work, saying goodnight to me. And then she was gone. I struggled to contain my grief and isolated myself from everyone. Except Jonah. Jonah was... my savior in a time when I felt I had lost myself. He had taken care of me in ways no one ever had. I knew he had his own issues, own stresses, own predicaments but he never failed to pick me up when I fell. And at that time I knew that I found person I wanted to say "Come un raggio di sole hai illuminato la mia vita" to."