To the stars beyond the blue || B. Hargrove

two: Michelangelo's David

The thing about living in a big city, is that you don't realize just how big it is until you leave.

I see tall gray buildings passing by as I lean against the window of the greyhound bus. More buildings. More buildings. Tall and shiny. They're all decked out in christmas lights and tinsel. It all blurs together in an ocean of reds and greens and yellows.

There's a sinking feeling seeping through my heart. A fundamental sadness, once it settles in my mind that this is probably the last time in a while that I will see my home. My ocean of colors. I don't want to be the girl that cries on a greyhound. No one wants to be the girl that cries on a greyhound. So I do what I know best, swallow my feelings and bury them deep where no one can find them. It's just easier this way.

The bus is packed with people, I assume a lot of them are going home for Christmas. It's ironic really. People are going home to be with their loved ones and I am being send away, by the one person that's supposed to love me the most. Mom hasn't even had the decency to come see me off. Just told me to be safe and kissed my forehead before she went to work earlier this morning. I try not to think of her right now. It would just make me more angry. More sad.

We make a stop and the bus fills up more, a guy sits next to me. Lovely. He smells like a fucking Bologna sandwich and every time he breathes through his nose it gives a little whistle and I wanna stab myself so I don't have to be here any longer.

It feels like my entire life is crumbling and falling apart right before my eyes and all I can do is watch silently.

I pull my headphones over my ears and press play on my walkman and, as Vince Neil yells at me about Helter Skelter, I lean my head back against the window and close my eyes. If my life is falling apart, at least I can give the downfall a killer soundtrack.

A few minutes later I am asleep. I don't see us leaving the city and for that I am grateful because I'm not sure my heart could've taken the sight.

The first thing I notice about Hawkins Indiana and the surrounding areas, is that there's a shit ton of woods. It's woods on woods on woods and fields on fields one fields. I miss my gay skyscrapers and shitty delis that smell like grease and desperation.

For the second time It occurrs to me just how big my hometown is. Just how much there was for me to leave behind.

A thick layer of snow covers the ground and the trees. There's icicles hanging from the branches and as the greyhound turns the corner onto the main street, I can just about make out the Christmas decor in the shop windows. Frosty the Snowman says buy this stereo for only $675,99, what a deal.

We pass a cinema and a record store and for a second I think that maybe things won't be so bad if they have those things at least. Then I remember going to the movies with my dad every sunday when he was still alive, and I get sad all over.

That's the thing about grieving, I guess, the hurt fades but it never fully goes away. My father's death is now as big a part of me as my eye color or my blood type. Hi, my name is Kathleen Sawyer, I have hazel eyes, my blood type is B positive and my dad died when I was 10. Grieve is not a phase, it's a perpetual state of being.

We approach what I assume is my stop, Bologna man says something to me, I can see his lips move but the voice of Billy Idol echoing from my headphone and singing about shooting stars, drowns out all other sounds. I give Bologna man a cordial smile, one of those closed-lips ones. That are halfway a smile halfway a frown.

He seems to appreciate that, it seems to satisfy his desire for human interaction, as he nods and leans back against his seat.

The bus pulls into the station and a bunch of people spill out, pushing and shoving to be the first one out, the first one to get their luggage and get to their loved ones. I turn off my music and let the headphones rest around my neck, before I grab my backpack and squeeze by Bologna man. He gives me a smile as I pass him, a real one. Maybe I've been doing him wrong. Maybe he's just a nice guy who can't help but smell like sausage. Either way, this is where our paths diverge and I can't say I am particularly sad about it.