A Wish for Life

Soles of feet pat, pat, patter across black asphalt. Stars overhead are winked out by light pollution and hidden behind the blanket of space. In their place, planes fly by, blinking: red, white, red, white. Years ago, I had stared up into that vast blackness, wondering how it would look five, ten years from then. Wishing for that teenage life romanticized in books, movies, and shows. For a long time, I thought it was a fantasy, make-believe. But now I lay in a field covered in dewy grass and cool, night air, the city skyline behind me. Yeah, this is life.

River Schwartz is a seventeen-year-old transgender writer and poet from the Philadelphia area. His piece “Can’t Reach Me” previously appeared in The Hallway.