Summer Bird Blue

It’s not fair for people to grieve alone. The people who are left behind should stick together. They should want to stick together.

Hawaii feels like a punishment, but I can’t figure out if it’s because I was a bad daughter or a bad sister.
Maybe I was both.

Because I hurt people, even when I don’t want to. Even when I should know better.

Maybe I’m too heartless to cry.

Love at our age? Pointless.

I feel like I’m writing a poem for Edgar Allan Poe.

It tugs my chest like something heavy and metal is pulling at my sternum. A queasiness rolls around my stomach, and I clench my fingers as tight as I can to try to steady myself, my fingers cutting crescent moons in my palms.

I’ve become a corrupted version of myself—a version everyone seems to think is on the brink of self-destruction.

And just like that, I build a mental wall, one hundred bricks at a time, like I’m creating armor out of my own frustration.