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the day after.

the day after goodbye does not feel like decisiveness. decisions are earned over time. this is not the crisp blue sky of an early fall morning. it’s the heavy yellow humidity after a summer storm. or the bitter gray cold of a harsh, unrelenting winter.

you’ve stumbled out from the past and now it’s a future you don’t know. the day after just carries its own recency, a surreal immediacy. you’re still living right next door to the version of you that used to understand the past and could tolerate the present; she’s not somewhere down the hall or around a corner you can avoid, and you’re noticing the walls are paper thin.

you can hear her scared and crying on the other side. she is playing the same songs that keep her warm and the same shows that pass the time. you know she’s just pretending to be ok. she is not going to help you.

she’ll be living next door and grieving (loudly) until she can be convinced. convinced that her full heart and empty diary are a blank canvas, maybe even a blank check, and not a shallow grave where she’s meant to curl up and die. that the old story can untangle itself without breaking any threads. that there’s more to come after the something that suddenly became a nothing from one day to the next.