Kick Drum Heart

Skittles are like marbles. They come in different colors and they’re round and can trip you if you slip on them. (I wouldn’t advise eating marbles, though.)

I feel like I slipped and skidded on skittles or marbles and have fallen flat on my back.

It’s been a while since I’ve thought about Daniel.

No, I didn’t know him personally. I feel like I need that as a disclaimer whenever I write about him. Or talk about him. But he’s affected me, so deeply it’s almost eerie.

We went to Eden today to watch our Gowanda boys get their asses handed to them in football.

As soon as our players were announced, they started on Eden’s.

“Number Three… Brandon Dix!”

And my mom looked at me and said something muffled that sounded a little watery. She didn’t repeat it. But she said at halftime she’d go try and find Tari.

It just– I don’t know what “it just.” It’s absolutely heartwrenching and migraine-inducing to think about losing a child, but it happens all the time. According to my mom, Tari’s not doing so great. And who would be?

I was thinking today as we drove back from Fredonia that if a car swerved and hit and killed us, we’d be dead. Michelle wouldn’t have us anymore. Dad wouldn’t get fed. Grandma would be shattered.

And our lives would be over. I wouldn’t have done anything I wanted to do yet.

It makes my poor little sunburned head feel like exploding, just thinking about this. But it’s true: life could vanish in the snap of a finger, the blast of a gun. The turn of a moment. Like how it vanished for Daniel.

Everyone’s scared of death, in some way, shape or form. I guess I’m no exception.