Some people don't fly. Some of us don't want to fly. Some of us just want to disappear.
<p><img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000106775.jpg"/></p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>There were two of us</p><p><br/></p><p>I sat in the light.</p><p>He sat in the shadows just beyond it.</p><p><br/></p><p>We never spoke.</p><p>Not once.</p><p>But the space between us told a story no one else noticed—because no one else was looking.</p><p><br/></p><p>I sat near the windows, always chasing sunlight with my eyes. I had a soft voice and a softer heart. People liked me. Teachers said I was kind. I carried a notebook full of half-finished poems and whispered promises:</p><p><br/></p><p>"One day you will fly too."</p><p><br/></p><p>I said it like a prayer, to classmates who cried in bathrooms, to the mirror when my own hands trembled.</p><p>I believed people were meant for more. Even the broken ones. Especially the broken ones.</p><p><br/></p><p>He sat in the back, stitched into the silence like part of the wall.</p><p>No one remembered when he transferred in.</p><p>No one noticed when he stopped raising his hand.</p><p><br/></p><p>He wrote, too. But not poems. Not hope. Just a quiet unraveling.</p><p><br/></p><p>"One day.</p><p>I am gonna grow wings.</p><p>A chemical reaction.</p><p>Hysterical and useless."</p><p><br/></p><p>He etched it into his desk with a bent paperclip.</p><p>Small, jagged letters.</p><p>Not meant to be read.</p><p>Just meant to exist somewhere outside of him, where the ache might be quieter.</p><p><br/></p><p>While I dreamed of lifting off the ground,</p><p>He dreamed of vanishing.</p><p>Of becoming something the world couldn’t touch.</p><p><br/></p><p>I talked about the sky like it was waiting for everyone.</p><p>He stared at it like it was mocking him.</p><p><br/></p><p>I said:</p><p>"You'll get there. One day. We all will."</p><p><br/></p><p>He thought:</p><p>I don’t want to get there. I just want to stop being here.</p><p><br/></p><p>Then, one Tuesday. It rained like grief.</p><p>And he didn’t show up.</p><p><br/></p><p>The teachers murmured.</p><p>The students shrugged.</p><p>Only I noticed the absence like a hole punched through the day.</p><p><br/></p><p>They found his body three days later.</p><p>Alone.</p><p>Cold.</p><p>Clutching a notebook warped with water damage and blood at the edges.</p><p><br/></p><p>Most of the pages were blank.</p><p>Except the last:</p><p><br/></p><p>"One day.</p><p>I am gonna grow wings.</p><p>A chemical reaction.</p><p>Hysterical and useless.</p><p>But at least it will be quiet."</p><p><br/></p><p>They held a memorial.</p><p>Flowers. Speeches.</p><p>A moment of silence that stretched like a noose.</p><p><br/></p><p>I sat in the front row, fingers clenched around the only copy of his words.</p><p>I didn’t cry.</p><p>I didn’t speak.</p><p><br/></p><p>I just stared at the sky,</p><p>and for the first time,</p><p>it didn’t look open.</p><p><br/></p><p>It looked cruel.</p><p>Empty.</p><p>Indifferent.</p><p><br/></p><p>After that, I stopped saying it.</p><p>"One day you will fly too."</p><p><br/></p><p>Because some people don’t.</p><p>Some people fall.</p><p>And some wings never grow.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p>
Some people don't fly. Some of us don't want to...
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