The memories are here. They are stored in a journal that exists only in the metaphysical world, and are heavier than any other book in my backpack. The pages of the journal are stained with tears and pain, and some miscellaneous papers are empty, devoid of feeling or thought. Somehow, the pages with nothing seem to be the heaviest, almost as if they were made out of led. Those are the worst memories of all- times when you cannot feel.
I think of the days when I was twelve years old. Although this was only two short years ago, the time feels impossibly distant. I remember that boy, and I remember his shocking blue eyes, electricity held in a gaze. It’s almost like he’s there with me, and I’m feeling a bit nostalgic for my stupid, petty crush. But then I remember what he did and the things he said, and suddenly all the weight in the world is pulling me down by my hair.

When I enter the classroom, I see a boy with the brightest, blondest hair. I shake. After only a moment, though, I see that it’s not him, and it can’t be him. I moved schools to get away from the nameless boy who called me a name as I walked down the hallway. It was only once, months ago, but I still remember his cream skin that matched his friends around him. His nose curled up like I was something disgusting, maybe a dead cockroach he found on the sidewalk. Now, it’s as if a hundred of those led pages have been dumped into my backpack.

As I look around, I see that everyone has a backpack pulling at their shoulders. When they set them down onto the floor, careless as ever, I think that maybe I can do that, too. Maybe I can let my papers scatter across the floor and tickle the feet of my desk. As I set my bag down, though, I realize that there is something still there, an umbilical cord that tugs at me everytime I try to pull away, and no matter how far I stretch myself, no matter the lengths I go to in order to detach myself- it is always there. However, some moments attached to it don’t hurt as much as others.

Only now do I realize how gorgeous it is as the students move across the room, all tied to their bags. Our cords twist and dance with each other, creating what looks like a delicate spiderweb as it reflects the sunlight crawling through the windows. It hits me then that what makes us individually broken is what makes everyone universally whole. Where would I be if it were not for this cord attached to me that dances with the strife of others? Nowhere. The spiderweb is my home, in the same way that it is home to everyone else.
The class is quieting down now. “You can read for the last twenty-minutes,” the teacher says. I pull out a book that sits next to my invisible journal. In reading the story, every word gets sucked up into me, creating the best kind of baggage there is. The eloquence of the text travels through my umbilical cord and into my bag. I watch as the journal becomes enveloped in a sea of words, and a small smile tugs on the corners of my lips. Goodbye, I think as I watch the blue-eyed boy and the boy with bright hair being wrapped in layers and layers of my soul. The cord is still there, but the tugging does not bother me.
This feeling is the best. It is attached to the realization that everyone has things they carry, and that weight can be good and that weight can be bad. Either way, it is what pulls us all together.