I Am Running Blind

• Sara Gilbert, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2021

I am running blind. For I am afraid that should I open my eyes, you will vanish – naught but an illusion, a cruel dream. For it is a cruel dream indeed that gives me all that I want, only to rip it from my grasp when I wake, with nails that claw at my soul, tearing it to shreds like blank paper. Empty paper. For words have lost all meaning. They would only be an understatement. No spoken language could ever convey these emotions that beg me to write them – a futile task, but they beg me, nonetheless. But I hear them, and I cannot concentrate. My thoughts, they blur together to form your name and nil else matters. And nothing makes sense yet at the same time I feel I could understand everything if I only paused to consider it. But I don’t want to stop. I want to run and fly and soar (which is ironic considering I’m scared of heights).
I have stared at the moon and asked desperately for her wisdom. For I am lost. I know not how to navigate these billion stars that seem to align when we’re together. I have… tried to stare at the sun and ask desperately for his strength, but had to turn away before I was blinded by his light. And then I wouldn’t have been able to stare at you. And I could stare at you forever.
I feel my heart race and my hands shake and I do not know how to control it. And, somehow, that feels right. Like it shouldn’t be controlled. Like it should just be left to… be. To exist. And it never ends. I lie in bed wishing you were beside me – that I could feel your arms around me. And I do not want it to end. I do not want it to cease. You are my whole world, and I know that is just reckless, but I do not care. This feeling, I do not understand it, nor do I seek to. All I know is I don’t need to understand it, just as long as I keep feeling it.
And I would live my whole life dreaming, only to never have to leave this moment. And I would live my whole life blind, only to never have to see you gone.