Guest Writer: Hrishita Ghosh
Right now, you’re 19 and you don’t understand how because yesterday it felt like time had slowed its walk down to a crawl.
Sometimes you remember how you didn’t know the people singing to you now a year ago,
and how the ones you knew a year ago aren’t singing to you now,
and that you were 16 once and it doesn’t seem too long ago,
but also how you don’t remember being 17 at all.
Sometimes you remember that there were words that pierced like tiny blades and stayed inside your skin,
and that the green tiles in the bathroom of your old house saw you wipe your own blood off of them.
You think of how the sky was purple when you turned 18,
and how your dad cried when you left home for the first time that day,
and how you called your mom silently crying but didn’t let her know you were sad,
and how your brother hugged you when you visited after months.
You remember how there were scratches left on your arms by your own sharp nails,
and how you begged the wrong people to stay,
and how you had bruises on your knees and marks on your neck,
and how you didn’t want them to fade just so you could have some evidence that you’d been worthy of someone else’s touch.
And sometimes you remember how you filled out the pages of seven notebooks writing about grief,
and how you’d grieved over losing something you’d never even had,
and how the love had made you both kind and cruel,
and how you reserved that kindness for others and the cruelty for just yourself.
Remembering is not always easy and you think about how you’d prayed to forget.
And right now, you’re 19 and you still don’t understand much but time isn’t crawling anymore.
