seven seven seven

It's been years, but it has felt like a millennia. I've grieved in anticipation, and then again in the wake. I've grieved on the sunniest days, through a shining smile, and through storms and storms and storms. I let my grief become me, forgetting I had ever been anything else. I've grown stubborn, I’ve grown weary, and I still haven't washed the sweater I wore that night. Sometimes I think I’ve become a walking obit, like an epitaph of everything I've loved and lost. Or maybe I’m in stasis, reliving the moment I realized I’ll spend the rest of my life longing, missing people until my last breath. I've prayed to start over, and I've wished to stay the same as I've always been. But I'm starting to understand it now, grief, this small thing on my shoulder. I still notice its weight when my body grows tired, I catch glimpses of it in windows, or reflected to me in the eyes of my mother. But I've realized in the end (and oh, how I hate endings), it comes down to life and death, and one is not waiting for the other. 

It's been years, and still I find myself writing to breathe, writing to remember and be remembered in the face of loved ones slowly forgetting. I write because it is all I have ever known, my one pure and simple need, the very thing that permeates if you peeled me back and saw what lies beneath. In the end I will always be this, seventeen and writing to be heard, nineteen and writing to be seen, twenty and writing because god what else is there. Twenty-four, and writing, because when it’s all over it will always just be me and my words. 

p.s, I plan on not taking myself this seriously ever again. But as I said, it's been years, and it felt like a disservice to the girl who lived through it to not scream all this into the void. Below are some photos from the last year or so, thank you for reading, it means everything to me. 

Yours always,

Trin.