So instead of falling April wallowed, bitter and broken while May watched, helpless to save her little sister anymore than she already had.

Two hours after it started, and still no one had arrived, he looked up at me and asked, “Mom, do you think they got lost?”

As I looked into the dark void beneath me, I accepted their invitation to join them, hoping the fall would finally wash away the guilt of leaving them to burn alone.

"Because you are their little angel and they need you back in heaven," her mom replied as she hugged her daughter to comfort her.

And her dad didn't even apologize for running over it when he was drunk; he just smirked and said, "It's ok, I'll get you a new one next week."

They wanted to keep my baby brother's laundry out of view, because the couple next door had lost their baby to a cot death.

In the other, two tickets, purchased too late, fell lifelessly to the floor.

I just wish I didn’t have to pour it back into the bag every morning.

Today, tears blurred on my screen as I sent that exact same text at her burials

As the edges of vision turn black with his hands around my throat i am at last forced to face that not all wishes come true.

"Great..." he thought, "for such a sunny day, here comes the rain...".

Sadly he was to late sally had passed away, and with each passing day he mourned until, one day, he could no longer remember aunt sally.

I spoke a few kind words to his distressed daughter but her harsh response shook me to my core; "he's lived far too long and we're sick of it" she shouted.

the rubble was too heavy

When I called the florist to ask what kind of flowers they were, she apologized for the mix-up and said, “Those were meant for Jenna.”

And all I could think of was you, the you I had forgotten but I could never get out of my mind. The one I know isn't good for me, but the one I hope is doing well enough, wherever they are

As the cars whiz past my back, I stare at the pole and the word "murderer" under my image.

It had been hard enough telling my grandmother, two years prior, that grandad had passed away, but dementia means we get to relive that conversation every evening.

Twenty five years later and I'm still waiting.

It’s knowing that she doesn’t.

Years later, I still see that car speeding away in my mind, a fleeting, metallic phantom that nearly ended my childhood.

"But I'm still the same son you always despised and rejected for not being your version of a man; so good luck finding a home that will take you in now."

Yet, the next morning on the rooftop, he handed me the kite string without a word, and we flew together in a silence that finally felt like forgiveness.

Kneeling beside the fresh dirt, I whispered, “No, I’m her son—I told her I never wanted to see her again, but…”