a body broken out in mourning

my best friend chenay is afraid of heights. she swears humans only have bones just to anchor us to the ground. otherwise—we’d all float up to the sky, graveyard. that’s why she’s on her ass right now, denim shorts traveling across gravel & dirt, moving about five centimeters a minute, as we descend a windy mountaintop. i’m a few feet behind her & focus on encouraging her—it’s okay, we’re almost there—rather than rushing ahead with most of our group, spiraling down the trail fast, their hands already wrapped around the metal chains pounded into the mtn, present for climbers to safely travel the mtn’s vertical slope. we can hear the rattling & clanging of their movements, which i can tell bothers chenay. she stops moving, & i think we both imagine what slipping or letting go of those chains means: nosediving into broken puddles of bones. when we reach the chains, we see members of our group reach the canyon floor, each assisting one another with an outstretched hand. & to my surprise, chenay extends her hand as she pulls on metal: i got you. if you need help. & we slink down, paper clipped. not until we’re at the bottom do i notice you’re still up at the top of the mtn, & nobody’s up there to help you. is that why you didn’t reach out to any of us to help you with your sadness? we involuntarily committed you to the hospital the day before you killed yourself, & you didn’t think we wanted to help you, could help you, especially if we tossed you to strangers, especially if we thought a body broken out in mourning should be out of sight, straitjacketed & silent.

Read more from Issue 19.2.