MESS

And standing there in the middle of all that mess was my dear, old friend, with the most peculiar look on her face. The look that I saw on her face was one of pure joy. One of feeling truly free. She had multiple cuts all over her arms and her legs from stumbling and falling like her old clumsy self, but she did not feel pain. She felt free. I stood with her and I held her hand up and we screamed against the sunset as if we wanted the sun to cry and turn into rain. We laughed so hard that our stomachs were shaking from the number of butterflies that were in it.

 

From the vantage that we were on, we were little, but we conquered the world. From up and above the trees we saw over those adults that read with their sunglasses and their squinched faces as they cupped their hand over their foreheads trying to read their crumpled magazines. As we continued to gaze over the trees, the number of flower bushes that graced the ground and rose from the earth was so plenty that we would've been able to hold our wedding here. We would invite no one. Who needs anyone when you have each other and you face the world?
 

I glance over at her dirt-covered face and she glances back forward at my face with her equally dumb, yet cute smirk. The ground that we stood on was equal, besides the number of paper passages that once held countless dreams and wonders, all danced on the ground as the wind overtook and carried it away to be free. Our hands graced each other and we felt nothing besides the warmth of the sun alongside the bruises of our knees and the warmth of our cheeks.

 

We look at each other yet again, but with more reaffirmed smiles. We interlock our hands and stand over the pieces of paper that once held us back, alongside worried parents with bells no longer able to be heard and troubled friends with scabs on their knuckles. We were free, at last. What held us back now?

 

As our eyes locked and the wind chilled the warmth out of our bodies, we come closer and embrace. There was no other mess that could stop us now. There was nothing that could hold us back. Even as our lips quiver from reckless anticipation and impatience that makes up our young minds longing for something more, we knew we had no handcuffs. There was no doubt in our eyes and no shaking in our hands. The warmth of the sun embraced us alongside us hugging each other with no other care in the world. The paper, alongside the strings that we cut move freely in the wind.

 

It's you and me, together. What else?

Noah Carmona

VT

19 years old

More by Noah Carmona

  • DAY FISHING

    Through this ocean wet.

    My voice, free to thrive.

    Sea fish within dive.

    Reach in, draw the net.

     

    There you are, at last…

    Tell me what you have seen…

    Tell me everything…

  • A TREE

    A tree

    A stationary tree

    The bark so righteous; its core so pure

    The leaves illuminate with the sunlight

    The roots befriend the live earth

    All as one, freely

     

    A human

    A cross human

  • MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN

    In the middle of the ocean I lie
    There is not a single cloud in the sky
    The sun beams down and browns my skin evenly
    Drying my skin like a towel, boiling my blood like tea;