if you’re reading this i’m alive — McKenna Casey

if you’re reading this i’m alive

McKenna Casey

I am not used to happiness this big. I keep waiting for it to slip like it tends to, but it doesn’t.

I am trying not to think about car crashes or growing up.

I am staring at my own hand where it plays in the wind, my skin a different shade each time we pass a streetlight or neon storefront. If this sort of night (this sort of feeling) could be bottled then I would be an addict.

This! Right now!

A glimpse of an older couple walking hand in hand and I’m caught off guard — Love is alive and well at a gas station off the highway. My hand is getting cold but I can’t bear to bring it inside. I put the moon between my thumb and pointer finger.

We keep driving.

I don’t want to go home, not yet, at least let this playlist play through. You haven’t heard half these songs. Bowie! You haven’t heard Bowie! All the lights are turning green for us.

Inside my chest, my heart is a tenuous, flickering thing, coming back to life somewhere around the last stop sign on Palomino.