broken [ Jill ]

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

j i l l garner

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't remember.

How- why couldn't I remember?

The sun had only just reached its peak when my whole world shattered. Sunlight filtered through the gaps of the blinds, attempting to caress my skin with a warm touch. But I felt nothing. I felt nothing but unfiltered agony as the tether that had been pulled so tight between Jimmy and I finally snaps, hurtling me into a world of pain and darkness and I couldn't breathe.

How do I breathe?

My hand is clutching my chest, my mouth open in a silent wail as I fall to the ground, as part of my soul is torn away from my very being. On the screen I watch as Jimmy, my brother, my twin, the one person who knew me better than I knew myself, falls, his heart refusing to beat, as the life drains from his eyes. Dead.

Dead.

My lungs refused to expand..

I thought that I knew pain. I thought that I knew what it felt like to be abandoned. Parents as absent as a blemish on perfectly treated for skin, I truely believed that I knew what it felt like to be alone.

I was wrong.

It wasn't until this very moment that I knew what it felt like to be truely and utterly alone.

And I didn't know how to breathe.

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

j i l l garner

How can you see in the dark when there is no light?

Light had turned to dark and I had ran into the streets, barefoot and broken.

I had run until my lungs burned.

I had run until I had nothing left to give.

My body folds in on itself and I retch into the dirt. Dirt and mud soak into the thin material of my night down as my hand is braced against a rotting stump, bracing myself as my body spasms, my eyes burning as bile climbs my throat.

Something irreplaceable is broken within me, tearing me open open from the inside.

I didn't know how to fix it. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Pushing myself to my feet, I ignore my body's protest and I run.

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

j i l l garner

Born with our hands interlocked, tiny fingers grasping to each other for dear life, we had grown to be intertwined. We were two side of the same coin. We were inseparable, connected from the moment we were conceived.

Together we had flourished in the world, knowing without one seed of doubt, that no matter what happened, whatever we went through, it would be okay because we in it together, forever and always, we were unbreakable.

Fourteen years, the length of their forever.

Broken, the twin flames splutter before one extinguishes.

The remaining ember dances in the darkness, burning and waning, fighting to survive, it struggles to keep the flame alive.

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

j i l l garner

At the districts edge, I am braced against the fence. Wind whips me in the face, harsh and deliberate. The chill bites at my exposed skin.

Face turned up to the sky I fall to my knees.

Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision and I scream.

I scream into the darkness.

I scream from the bottom of my lungs.

I scream until my throat becomes hoarse, until my screams turn into sobs.

Clutching the fence I twist until my back is pressed against the wire, my legs pulled to my chest. I press my face into my knees, and stayed huddled against the fence until the moon dips beneath the horizon.

"I didn't get to say good bye."

The words are whispered, raw and broken, like a plea into the night.