Chapter Text
There is a cicada nestled deep inside of my heart. It sleeps, buzzing dreamless thoughts and crumbling, rotten old feelings of love for a red-haired boy of long ago. Every so often, it grows sick of my face, of my skin, of the dark. It crawls outside of my heart to sing.
There is a cicada inside of me, hidden beneath blistered hands and averted eyes. I know I have to be careful with it, because it is self destructive and I am fragile. I want to rip it out some days, but it just laughs and grows larger and larger.
It’s grown so much since that day.
When Sal died and all the places I ran to suddenly had no room for me.
I think it was raining that day because Sal was lying face-down in a gutter, and the gutter was filing with water because the sewer was clogged. If Sal were alive he would’ve been drowning, but as it was, the water was simply stroking his hair.
I think I cried, or maybe I screamed. I’m not sure. All my memories have holes in them now.
I don’t remember his face.
I ran home and saw all the missing posters, but they were water-stained and ripped and I couldn’t see his face.
There was a time when I thought I’d remember his face forever. But now, I’m all alone. I love nothing and no one.
Not even myself, and that’s why there’s a cicada nestled deep inside of my heart.