Laughter and Unbreakable Promises
BY EMMA HANNAH '24
i.
Born to be anything, or everything, she
Crashed into the hands of a mother who
She had only just met. Her life started with
A bang, coming into the world kicking
And screaming- probably- and with a sigh of relief.
When the breath of her voice reaches my face, I see
Gray and black and cloudy days. I feel
The simplicity of her life, but also
The yearning for more, the inexcusable demand for Success, and the uncontrollable desire
For something more than the dull life she had been
Thrown into.
Through the vibrations in the air, my brain depicts An image of car rides and loud music and
Floral print and Converse. I don’t see her
Though, but rather a version of a storybook Character in a period piece from not too long ago.
And I don’t know her. She’s never introduced herself to me.
I am only slightly familiar with her frame because of the stories
Recounted by those who
Lived like her, and knew her,
And by those who would recognize her walk and her stare and Her laugh.
I wonder if she laughed.
ii.
Thinking her way
Into the life she dreamt about,
She finally felt free enough
To do everything she had
Never done.
A needle punched through the cells of
Her skin, but only once.
The music she had only listened to in
Solitary now pulsed through her bones,
And the floorboards, of one of The Great
College Town Bar Scenes
Sitting on the side of
The hill.
But her life didn’t dissolve into a simple
Mound of unnecessary and chaotic
Fun. The person she was
Before leaving the town of dull blues
And grays and no sunshine,
Stuck with her throughout her studies
And sat deep inside her at the core of
Her unshakeable morals and
Was the apex of everything she had ever believed in.
I wonder what she loved.
iii.
I didn’t know her back then- back
When she was wild, back when she was
Free (of rules, of worry, of the constraint of time)-
But I know her now.
I know her better
Than the stories her
Best friend tells,
And he repeats narratives more often than he should.
I no longer wonder if she would laugh
At the string of words I weave together in my brain, but instead,
I hear the angelic pitch of the sound
That forces
An upside down frown
Onto my face.
The weight of her uncharacteristically
Disastrous combination of genetic makeup
Brings the shades of gray that
Only appear before the first crack
Of thunder, whose only intentions are to bring
Depression to the innocent and
Hatred to the loved.
This gray comes in the absence of the violet
Undertones of the sky just before the sun sets.
This gray is without the purity of the clouds
That drift by one by one, and stand out against the
Stark blueness of a crisp day.
This gray has no explanation. It’s just a feeling I get
When the possibility of death covers me like a blanket, but I’m already sweating.
Don’t worry, though,
I’m not still wondering if she laughed.