i think i am lost in myself because i have no one else to be lost in.
i sit next to my father as i drive from one home to another,
there is grey sky in front of us and lightning behind us and he tells me that i have never had a permanent family.
he begins the conversation and i do not continue it,
but his words stay in my throat like honey or mucus or rot until i cannot ignore them.
i stand in the eye of a hurricane as faceless men get swept away in the wind.
i feel no pain. i hold my mother's hand and my brother's hand and i am okay, i am okay because i am too young not be.
my brothers grip loosens and i am still okay, still okay when my grandmother is stolen by the storm because my mother tells me her mind was already one with the thunder.
i watch my brother walk into the hurricane with his back turned to me.
i call for him until my voice goes hoarse, cry out until i accept that my words are lost in the wind, but i am okay.
my father walks into the eye of the hurricane every so often. he kisses my forehead and tells me he loves me and then i blink and he is gone.
i catch glimpses of my temporary families and my temporary homes and my temporary lives in flashes of lightning, disappearing as soon as they arrive.
they come and then they go. they are all in and then out, here and then gone, important and then forgotten. they leave me in the calm of the storm and i leave them in the piercing winds and that's how it is because it can't be any other way. they love me when i am with them and they don't when it hurts too much to and they forget about me without meaning to; they forget the redness of my cheeks and the pitch of my laugh and i forget the curl of their hair and the warmth of their eyes, and that way it barely even hurts. that way it's okay.
my father drives me away from the storm and before he returns, he reminds me that i am leaving, that i have always left and he has always left and everyone has always left.
he begins the conversation and i do not continue it but i sob into my pillow a week later.
permanence. i have felt it from one person and one person only, not from a family or a home or a life. my mother is my permanent mother and my permanent father and my permanent brother and my permanent everything and i hate that it has to be that way and it's not okay, i'm not okay and i wasn't when i left everyone in the storm or when i called out to my brother for days and months and years or when my grandmother died and no one shed tears.
permanence. i scrape it into my skin just to pull it apart and set it alight and throw its ashes into the storm because i hate what i don't have. i stand in the eye of the hurricane but there is no peace here, just stillness and numbness and the feeling of my beloved turned faceless from absence, the feeling of them passing through my dead skin. i have burnt my nerve endings so i don't feel them hug me and i have drained the love from my heart so it doesn't hurt when they say goodbye.
i hold no one's hand and i cry no tears and have no one to be lost in but myself, and i am okay.
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not proofread. im so fucking tired and this makes no sense and im screwed for school tomorrow and i properly sobbed for the first time since writing the second fucking chapter of this book. i hope someone fucking reads this goodnight
