What do I do now? What happens next? Can they finally bury me? Can we finally have peace?
I can’t watch my mom cry all the time. Or watch my dad’s sad face as he makes tea. There is already a big hole in me, and it keeps getting bigger. Soon the hole will be all that I am.
I sat on the big rocks by the lake for a long, long time. Maybe hours. Maybe days. I don’t know. I thought I heard something. A voice like mine. Praying melodically, so it sounded like a song and I kept it in my heart.
There’s no one to tell me what to do. No explanation I can find for why all the events in my life—and in my death—are happening this way and not the way I thought they would. Is this all there is? Am I only ever going to be #bombboy?
Not a lot of things make sense right now, but maybe one thing I can do is help. I’d like to help. Safiya is so close to danger. When I’m nearby, though, I think I give her bad dreams. Dreams that haunt her. I’m sorry. That’s not what I wanted. Nothing is what I wanted.
She’s the only one who notices me. The only one besides my parents who seems to remember me. Everyone is forgetting. Everyone will forget. Please don’t forget.