I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“You might have seen more, suffered more, but don’t tell me I have
no clue what loss feels like,” she says. The watch unclips from her
wrist and falls onto the concrete. Thrown across the line she draws.
“I’ve had enough people tell me it’s all in my head.”
She smiles. An empty smile with tears trailing down to the corners of
her mouth. Then, she turns around, back from where she came,
another sun setting, my fingers caught in the cold air.
The pain is sudden. It’s forceful, a propulsion. I want to open myself
up and let it escape like steam. I fall into the concrete, letting my
knees scrape against the ground.
My ghosts escape their caskets.
My memories come flooding down the river.
And I feel so empty I could die.
hope
M
BEFORE
y name wasn’t always Sam.
When I came into existence I had no name, no memories, nothing.
Blood is my first memory.
It stained the room, a large fleshy circle where a man’s leg should
have been. He was screaming, the man. Women in white gowns
dabbed his face with cloth and leather strapped his limbs to the bed.
Another walked in, wiping off a metal saw slick with that same shade
of red. She threw the thing down aimlessly, smacking her legs so the
liquid would transfer from her hands to her once white dress. She
grabbed a needle and injected the screaming man with clear liquid.
He struggled against the binds and the women. It took a while for the