MOURN THE YOUNG

'Maybe forever is a word meant for memories, not people.'

I hate myself for mourning Aiden even though he's not gone. Why do I expect him to be dead? Do I not believe in him? I do, at least, I think I do.

Why am I so worried? What's wrong with me? This isn't normal. Something is truly, purely wrong with me.

I feel guilt. It's just guilt on top of guilt on top of guilt. A non stop cycle of a heavy weight that replaces the next. Slowly building until I'm nothing but a shell of me.

The guilt feels drowning. I am fully submerged in water, and even if I drown fully and die—I will still be in the water.

I feel guilty for mourning someone who isn't dead, I feel guilty because others have it worse, I feel guilty for questioning if I should feel guilty, I feel guilty for plainly feeling guilty.

But most of all—I feel guilty for only mourning Aiden. I don't know why, is this who I truly am? Would I even care if Tyler is dead if Aiden's okay?

That's what feels fake. Is it really mourning if I only mourn one out of two? Do you mourn separately? Or am I really that careless for someone else's life?

Every time we lay to sleep I hear the gentle sobs of Taylor. She's truly grieving.. but I couldn't care less.. I'm tainted with grief, I'm tainted with mourning, I'm tainted with sorrow.

I'm tainted.

I don't even know who I am anymore. I've become a tool. I am nothing more than a machine controlled solely by pain.

But the worst part is some part of me wishes Aiden is dead.

I feel so, so, so guilty for that. But I truly do.

But, I don't actually, I want to see him again—more than anything—but.. Some part of me just wants to justify grieving a loss I never had in the first place.

The guilt grows. And grows. An grows. And with it, grows more grief, more sorrow, more mourning. Those feed into my guilt and the cycle continues.

I walk around to move, I lay myself down to sleep, I chew slowly to eat, I blink lowly to see, I stand unsteadily to stay continuous, I breathe laboringly to live.

But all of those have an aching emptiness to them. Why do I even do all of that just to feel like a decoration on someone's shelf to grimace at.

I am nothing more than a gaping sadness.

The bug in the jar watches over me. Yet I'm right next to it. In the glass jar. I'm watching over me too, because I am no longer in my body. Me and my body are two different entities now, I watch over my body with a sadness like others see in me.

But the sadness is different. I see myself as a missing piece. I ache to be one person again. I hate the feeling of not being me, I look down at myself with the same grief I feel for Aiden.

But others just pity me then go their own way. All I am is motivation for someone else to not become me.

All I am is a page in someone's story. I am the character you pity, that you remember for the rest of your life. But even then. I will take up no more than a page and a subconscious thought. That's all I am, and all I'll ever be.

Me, Ben, Taylor and Logan sit in a train. We only paid for two seats and snuck Logan and me in—because we're the smallest—we need to save money, especially if we want to eat tonight.

God, would it be helpful if Aiden was here, his money would last us forever.

Taylor and Logan are snuggled up together next to me and Ben who are on our phones with headphones on. Taylor and Logan have grown closer these past three months of isolation from the group.

I stare at my phone, even looking at my screen hurts. I just want this pain gone. My battery is slowly dying, I have no charger, and no other entertainment. But I don't care, I just stare at the slowly lowering number in the corner of my phone as music I don't even register flows through one ear and out the other.

I would say nothing is entertaining anymore. But it is, it's just not fun.

Every time I see a tree I don't see a plant, I see a temporary beauty—Like a stranger—I'll never see that person ever again, but they feel. They ache, they laugh, they sob, they smile, they frown, they have family, they have heartbreak, they have love and loss. But I never saw that. I merely saw them as an object that I'll soon forget.

What story does our waitress have? She could have traveled that world and one day won the lottery and decided to settle down and become a waitress to work a job she loved where she never had to worry about money. Or, she could have been a widow who's husband was already struggling when he left her with a child, debt and a sorry heart and she hates her job but fakes a smile to make ends meat only to come home to a broken child in a broken home.

But I'll never know. All she was to me was a waitress. Someone I knew only by the diner's logo on and black apron. Nothing more than a stranger.

That's all anyone will be. just another stranger someone will pass by.

I look up from my phone and see a crowd of strangers. A pack of unpacked boxes. What lead people to be here? To sit across from me on this broken down train?

A wedding or divorce lawyer? A birthday or funeral? A daycare or retirement home? Maybe they came to meet someone for the first time, or maybe the last.

This isn't a train filled with strangers, it's a book shelf with stories just waiting to be read. But they never will be, no one will ever go up to someone and ask them their life story.

That is me. That stranger is me.

I am a stranger to myself. I wasn't before, I was me. I was a ballet dancer who was top of her class, I was girl who loved music, I was a daughter, a friend, a cousin, a niece. I was Ashlyn Banner.

But now I'm nothing more than a stranger. Someone with a story I will never be able to tell

The bug in the jar doesn't like it. She flutters her wings as she tries to become the free bug she once was. But she won't be. All she has is the three holes punched into the jar lid.

She aches to be who she used to be. Because she knows. Deep down. That she'll never be that bug again, she'll always fear the jar even when she's fat away, she'll always despise humans even though she was only caught once, and she'll never forget the feeling of weakness she felt. The fact that she expected that she'll never leave the jar. The fact that she was sealed away when all the other bugs lived their lives to the fullest.

And she'll never, never forget the fact that part of her life was taken from her. That she never gets to have her whole life to her, she'll always have to share part of it with the jar.

And the girl bug thought, just for a moment. Maybe the only way to leave the darkness is through death.

______Word Count: 1302