A STORY ABOUT A BOY JUST LIKE ME

APRIL 14, 2013

fall on me, said the boy to the light hung from the ceiling as he lay on his back on the floor 10 feet beneath it. fall on me and shatter into a dozen dancing fragments, sharp.

let them skitter razored gouges in the flesh of his open chest, let them bleed! let them scar! let them prove this day existed! let them prove this day existed! let them prove this day existed!

yet there was no response from the light, all the glass stayed in its proper place. no proof of this day, nor the last, nor the one before that dared make its mark on his skin.

but the hours ate him up from inside, the 9,000 days he’d been alive, the war, the cold, the restless burning hunger...