I recently lost my best friend to cancer, and words cannot describe how incredibly painful every waking hour has been since I got the news.
They say time heals all, and I can only hope that the memories that suffocate me now will soon become nostalgic treasures that will soothe my longing.
Right now, it fucking hurts tho
And grief is just a weird feeling. It's trying to face a reality that you cannot comprehend, much less accept; but it forces itself onto you regardless, bc there's no way back.
No way out.
This how it is now.
But really, in trying to process this new reality, it has dawned upon me just how... weird, it is.
Just how weird it all feels to me.
I still know his birthday by heart.
And when it comes around, I know I will think of what gift I should get him for a second - before remembering he's gone, and crying all over again over a wound that never truly healed.
I still know his favorite shows, and I know that he collected funko pops of them. There's a list on my phone with the ones he already had, so that I knew to look for new ones when shopping around.
The messages we sent are still on my phone. Still among the most recent ones, for now.
And when I click on them, the last words we ever exchanged (and will ever exchange) stare back at me. Just like they're any other ordinary message, unaware of the massive weight they carry to me.
As does his profile picture, a frozen image of what he will forever look like in my mind.
Spared the burden and the blessing of aging beyond his mid twenties.
The audio messages are still there, too.
His voice still calls me, by name, every time I hit play. Like an echo of what once was, a voice I will never hear again in this lifetime.
But the recordings remain.
And it hurts me so, so bad.
Yet, I play it over and over again.
Maybe hoping the words will be different at one point, like he's just recorded something new.
But by now, I know each audio by heart.
Over and over and over again.
I still know by heart all of the inside jokes that only he and I knew. And now, I have no one else to tell them to.
When I see a pair of blue pants, or finding nemo merch, or a news reporter wearing yellow; I'll have to keep it to myself from now on.
Because no one else in the world gets why that is funny to me.
Or why it was funny to us.
It's just, I didn't expect everything to vanish when you did.
But I didn't expect just how much what you left behind would hurt.
Your birthday. Our inside jokes. The recipe we always made together. The road where we'd drive at night almost every weekend. The shows we watched together that you'll never see the end of. The path we walked home after school as teens. Your favorite color. The book I borrowed and never gave back.
You are gone, but so much of you remains with me.
It's like a letter adressed to an empty house.
What do I do with it all now?
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[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]
a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”
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I think it's sad that most people always think of bottlenoses as the "classic dolphin" since its the one that's always used for shows, and always think of dolphins as just straight grey when in reality there's so many varieties with so many different amazing patterns
Look at the common dolphin! They have a gorgeous X pattern and even some dull yellow/gold!!
Hourglass dolphins have gorgeous white streaks
Spinner dolphins have really pretty banding as well, AND they have a really sleek cute silhouette!
The atlantic spotted dolphin!!! Theyre spotted!!!!!!
and the pantropical spotted too!!
Dusky dolphins have a gorgeous airbrush look going on like straight out of a 2000s fantasy illustration
Striped dolphins sure have stripes!! How cool!!
And these I've shown you aren't even all of them at all, there are so many of them:
There's so so so many different types of dolphins people dont know about this isnt even all of them and some are SO gorgeous and underrated because people just dont know they exist so I'm here to fix that
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lighthearted.
if this comic resonated with you, please consider donating to this palestinian escape fund (vetted by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein) as it is less than $7,000 away from it's goal.
i turn 24 today. To celebrate, I made this comic to be a spiritual successor to lead balloon, a comic in which I talked about the darkest period of my life so far.
A lot has changed since my 23rd birthday and this one. My priorities have shifted a lot, in ways that I think are mostly good. But i think the best part about today is that suicide has gone back to being a far away notion. I'm really lucky, and I'm grateful for that.
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