if you go, cities will not fall. empires will not crumble, temples will not collapse. citadels will not catch fire; rome will not go up in blazing glory like the sky did on your birthday last july fourth, when you whispered make a wish! and i laughed at you—because who makes wishes on fireworks?—but secretly wished with all my heart for you to not be sad anymore. if you go, rain will not drench the world for forty days and forty nights like it does in the chick-flicks we stay up watching until 2 a.m., i never liked those, you know, but you do and i like you. if you go, the earth will keep turning. but. if you go, the boy who sits across from you in math class will hear your name on the loudspeaker, and he’ll realize he won’t have anyone to help him on calc problems anymore but mostly he’ll wish that he’d talked to you about something other than integrals. if you go, your little sister won’t have anyone to compliment her drawings even though they’re masterpieces because she’s too shy to show them to anyone else. if you go, your big brother who claims he’s mature because he has a girlfriend will cry until he can’t breathe, and you won’t even be there to tease him about it. if you go, i’ll miss the midnight texting sessions about nothing in particular, the shared peppermint lip gloss, the early morning trading of answers to chemistry problems we were supposed to do last night. i’ll miss sitting in the back row of the movie theaters and laughing until my ribs ache even though everybody turns around to glare at us. i’ll even miss listening to your staticky voice on the phone whispering help, i don’t think i can do this anymore; i’ll miss the rush of relief that comes when i hear you talk because at least that means you’re still here, you’re still hanging on. if you go, nothing big will happen. no stars will explode. no sound, even, except the quiet breaking of all the hearts you left behind.
TO A FADING FRIEND | prose series #2 | inkmagician (via adathornes)
