I don't get why prom is like a mini-wedding these days...No one should spend that kind of money for a high school dance.

The world was large, so large. Bigger than it had been before. Family, too, a bigger word. That felt like a good thing. An essential thing. There was power in numbers.

A person could leave you so quickly. So much history and time and memories, but they snuck away from you, and other things took their place. How could you hold on? Wait. A bigger question. The biggest. How could you hold on and let go?

You've got to say what you mean and mean what you say...Doubt in your voice is an open door people will shove right through.

An untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean.

The hope was, people like me got to finally find our place in college or in the actual world. People who understood this told you that high school wasn't the actual world, that it was more like a temporary alternate reality you were forced to believe in for four years. A video game you played, where you could never get to the next level no matter how hard you tried.

You were a stone wall, a fort in high, unreachable trees, an island, my own island, that no boat could reach.