The concrete bleeds red, and her hair sticks to the pavement.
Her eyes fighting to blink,
one more time
she tells herself:
one
more
time.
Her stomach fills with blood, full of silence
a painful calm.
She still doesn’t believe she will die,
because it could never happen to her.
The screams of people around her fade
to a buzzing cacophony of blur.
It was not a pretty way to die.
Face squished against the ground,
a body above her, a millisecond too late.
Because they don’t teach you to count milliseconds in school.
Because peace is not meant for speed.
She believes it felt much longer than a few minutes,
but a body can only fight to exist for so long.
She slipped out of that hallowed form,
a long stretch of light has wisped her away.
;
When they told me she died
my first thought was
that it was not right for someone to die
this young.
Being cousins, her image was distant
but lovable.
I loved her like I loved the idea
of academia.
I almost went to school anyway that day.
But it hit me in my chest,
much like it hit her
that the world had lost something.
That her own academic years had ended.
And I thought about how she would
describe her death to me.
I don’t believe
it was warm.
Nor that she was afraid.
I think,
she was sorry.
Nov 16, 2025
Nov 16, 2025 at 12:21 AM UTC
The concrete bleeds red, and her hair sticks to the pavement.
Her eyes fighting to blink,
one more time
she tells herself:
one
more
time.
Her stomach fills with blood, full of silence
a painful calm.
She still doesn’t believe she will die,
because it could never happen to her.
The screams of people around her fade
to a buzzing cacophony of blur.
It was not a pretty way to die.
Face squished against the ground,
a body above her, a millisecond too late.
Because they don’t teach you to count milliseconds in school.
Because peace is not meant for speed.
She believes it felt much longer than a few minutes,
but a body can only fight to exist for so long.
She slipped out of that hallowed form,
a long stretch of light has wisped her away.
;
When they told me she died
my first thought was
that it was not right for someone to die
this young.
Being cousins, her image was distant
but lovable.
I loved her like I loved the idea
of academia.
I almost went to school anyway that day.
But it hit me in my chest,
much like it hit her
that the world had lost something.
That her own academic years had ended.
And I thought about how she would
describe her death to me.
I don’t believe
it was warm.
Nor that she was afraid.
I think,
she was sorry.
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