four years and four minutes by Neha Varadharajan (14, India)

It’s been four years. I linger around the sweet shops we once used to call home and take a whiff of the cold, succulent air of warm bagels and decadent pastries. 
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Won’t we always have a life like this?

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I kiss the window of the shops behind which remains gold, dusted jewellery you promised you’d buy me. I take in the metallic air and it cools my insides. 

Won’t you always protect me? 

I walk on the pretty blue cobblestones beside the sidewalk barefoot and take in all the pain, all the pleasure, and smell the warm crimson blood oozing. 

Won’t you bandage my hurt? 

I breathe in the cool November rain, wetting my dark clothes which cling on to me. They cling on to me. They don’t let go. 

Won’t you always stay by my side no matter what? 

I run, my unbandaged, damaged feet jogging with me, into the deep tunnel, safe from the cold rain. Safe from the cold outside. The hatred. The hurt. I smell the wet mud, I smell the water. 

Won’t you love me? 

The car is running too. It’s like a picturesque illusion, but almost soothingly real. It hits me. I fall. I hear the burst of fire, I smell sour smoke. I see your face, eyes open, mouth lingering, as I know you inside your Honda Civic, twisted the wrong way. I feel rest assured because you smell it. The blood, too. 

I won’t. 
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And it took around four minutes.

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