He is 9.
I am 22.
Tonight, we laid intertwined in our parents’ bed. His legs over mine. My left arm under his head. The fan blowing cool air over our rumpled clothes clad bodies. ‘I Heard the Party’ by Gem Club was playing through the computer speakers.
Tears run down the sides of his face. He told me that he remembered this song. I’d played it weeks ago in my room and when he heard it for the first time, he cried.
It makes him sad. When I ask him why he is crying he tells me that he doesn’t want any one of us to die. That he wants us to always stay together.
I promise him that we won’t die.
I don’t want to crush his innocence tonight. I just want him to be able to feel whatever his heart feels while he listens to the song. I know that society will soon try to shut down this emotional side of him. But he has a very big heart. I hope that it always comes out on top.
The second time we play it, tears run down the sides of my face. Although we are not necessarily crying about the same things, we are one. We are feelers. We get deeply connected to things. Our happiest moments seem to be lined with a little bit of sadness.
And we don’t have to talk about it.
We just let the melody and the lyrics of the song do that for us.
Even though we’ve barely exchanged four sentences the entire day – in this moment, we are closer than we have ever been.
Both mourning something that has yet to come and that we cannot explain.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 