Carolyne Geng
Everything is orange when you find the day to stop crying.
It’s not easy, believe me. It’s not a simple flourish, bend, and snap that dusts off the shards of rock on your chest, weathered by time. If anything, it’s this:
One — a hollow in your ribcage where your heart has hidden away.
Two — the accumulations of “I love yous” and “I miss yous” that build up like tangled cobwebs, neglected and fragile.
So it’s difficult to hold up the lantern and extinguish it with your dried-up tears that you’ve saved away for long nights and shaking earth because you can’t let the mountains crumble in broad daylight. How undignified of you, if you collapse in your caldera and vanish in miles upon miles of choking ash that smokes out the sunlight and pitch-perfect skies.
You will love yourself again.
Yes, you want to know when. This is where I put my finger on your mouth and soothe the beating of your heart and tell you of a future where it is no longer a trial to coax your grief out of your hollow, your stars, your exhaustion. I can promise this over any other words I have said because a hollow can grow back your life and hopes — the ones that flew away when you crumpled away between hollow bones like sand.
So this is where it’s orange and when you find your heart again.
Carolyne Geng is a first-year economics (and an undecided second major) student hailing from Northern California. In her free time, you can find her making puns, walking her dog, enjoying spicy food, and drawing on Post-It notes.
