We'll Always Go On

Quiet

Some days are too much in their vast entirety.

Some days are too quiet in their spacious layout and too loud in their rushed passing.

Some days I watch the light grow and fade from this window, wanting a change and wanting a standstill.

Some days I think of my father, and how just after my birthday they told him he was sick. That birthday he had given me a hairpin.

"A butterfly, Rosebud." He put it into my outstretched hands. "Because I know that nothing will stop you from flying to the ends of the Earth to achieve your goals." 

Mother smiled.

"It brings out the green in her eyes. Rose, darling, would you like me to put your hair up with it?"

Fourteen years old, young enough that I still wore my hair down my back. I felt like a lady, with my new green butterfly keeping my hair twisted up.
"Thank you, Papa!" I hugged him, and even though I wasn't so little anymore, he picked me up and swung me around, laughing with me. Like nothing was ever going to change.

My last birthday with him. He left us months later, and I cried at his bedside and begged him to stay. My mother left and it was just me and Papa. 

We had said everything that there was to be said but I felt so hollow, so helpless.

The last of the warmth from his hands wisped away, and I knew that I was really, truly alone.

And here I am, sideways on this couch.

I've been looking out the window for so long that I'm barely seeing anything anymore. I guess it's just comforting to know that I still can see.

Quiet, quiet, quiet.

It's pressing and massive and for just today I've let myself be lonely.

I wish my father had been there for me.

I wish I had the love of my life with me.

I wish that someone were here to say something, anything.

Anything hurts less than the quiet.