Pain and sorrow are the sweet rains flowing across the film of our lives. We dive deep through trust and into the heart of betrayal, twisting and turning along the strings of lies and illusion. Passion carries us across, and we hold to heart, afraid to break. But it’s the pieces of tragedy that tell the real stories, stories that we cannot turn away from; can we watch them again and again? Or as the screen fades to black, do we remain held within memory, forever touched by the film of their lives?
It’s a simple turn of the page that can be ignored. We don’t want to hear about it. We don’t want to see it. We don’t want to know, but it still happened. One story always echoes across the news. A life was lost. Tragedy struck. Justice remained blind, and so do we. But if we chance to look, we see the double-edged coin spinning on its side, telling two stories at once. One’s mistake and another’s loss is the Reservation Road that we take into the heart of the human soul. Tragedy defines, and two lives spin into a crash course that will change time, and forever change us, for it was ripped from headlines, a hit and run. And we want to know. We realize. We see. We feel, and Drama pulls us in, holding to heart. We fear to break, knowing our bubble is about to burst, but we cannot turn the page. And then the screen fades to black.
Are we the sum of our experiences, or are we the pieces left behind? Only the heart remembers our true essence while tragedy echoes our loss. Nobody can identify the remains of our lives left broken, fragmented, and jagged with no justice rendered. It’s just the story told, the jury selected, and the pages that fold over and across, but it’s the loved ones that cling now to those torn pages of life loved and lost. It’s their story that drifts over the fragments we leave behind, filling in the gaps, afraid to let go, and we follow them through the journey ahead. Every tear is the whisper of tragedy and struggle, but every touch is the hand to heart, the remembrance of love, for love never truly dies. The ashes of what we leave behind are merely Personal Effects. The fire that kindles beneath is who we really are; it pulls us back from tragedy, ties the scars together, and takes flight into a new breath of life, washing the past away, and embracing a future dedicated to being lived for us, in memory.
1. Trust
It’s hard looking away especially with those stories brought to life, stories that push past our defenses, and strike the very chords to our heart. We all want the perfect life. We all want to be loved. We seek connection, and we Trust. We give all that we are, but what if we break apart? How do we return to before a click of the button? How do we forget what we will always remember, what they will never forget? There is no going back, and our scars are fresh with those mistakes. That could’ve been us, and we try not to think how easily that door could open, changing us forever. But we remain caught between the borders of fear and hope that everything would turn out alright, but there are no happy endings because nothing ever ends. Our mistakes, our choices are the fabric of our lives that wrap us up in regret, in anger, and in sadness. We remain, or we struggle to come back, tell the stories that need to be told. Be warned, for that could be you. There is no perfect life. There is just life in all its glory and in all its destruction, so we cannot look away. We have to look once. We look, and we remember, for that’s life. And movies such as these speak in volumes.
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Melissa R. Mendelson is a published short story author and a self-published poet, whose work has been featured in The Outreach for Breast Health Foundation’s Anthology: Beyond Memories, Names in a Jar: A Collection of Poetry by 100 Contemporary American Poets, and Espresso Fiction: A Collection of Flash Fiction for the Average Joe.
