I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

There are no string lights or stars or grand gestures to be had.
Hikari’s illness has not relinquished, but she did not become it. I form
a shield around her body pulsing with cries as she lets herself feel
the pain of it all.
“I don’t want to die,” she sobs. “I don’t want to be alone.”
I keep her close, the distance squandered to nothing. I don’t look
away. I pull her from the road where she would’ve been swallowed
by greedy souls. I give her back that hope she gave me.
“You’re not alone, Hikari,” I say. Sony hugs her round the back,
interlacing her hand with mine. C pets what is left of her hair, him
and Neo wrapping around us. “You’re not alone…”
She is a part of our story now.
I have stolen her.
She is real.
Flesh and full and fallen and I will love her.
Even if in the end, on the very last page, I will lose her too.
the whale
SBEFOREam was born with a body unfit for the outside world. They
say he was pulled from the womb with crumbling bones, blood
oozing from his eyes, nose, and mouth, skin so thin it slipped from
his flesh, wailing ear splitting cries, and cursing all those who
touched him.
Those stories aren’t true. They’re tales children who Sam isn’t
allowed to play with make up. They say he is separated from them,
because he’s dangerous, a beast, that he’ll swallow them whole.
Disease likes to repulse, both in mind and body, tying fear’s nooses.
Those children snicker into the back of their hands and spread their