Louder Than Bombs

She always said things that made you stop and think. “Turning back is bound to be just another calamity.” We would be walking to her house in silence, and she would just say, “Do people apologize because they’re sorry or because they don’t want to feel guilty.” She was different than other people our age. She cared about things that mattered. She was like me. Grace thought. 

We screamed to the Pixies at 3 AM together. We listened to the Louder Than Bombs album by The Smiths and cried over Kurt Cobain. We watched every John Hughes movie 50 times and knew all the words Dazed and Confused. 

We could be silent and still know what each other were thinking and what was wrong. 

But she moved. 

Again. 

Our favourite song still rings true to that house. And to everything. 

“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

Running over the same old ground.

What have we found?

The same old fears.”

But the people in that house now have no idea.

So much happened in that old, broken house. Friendships made, broken. Lies told. Jokes made. Fears and secrets exposed. 

Life.

Life was lived, and those people have no idea.

I guess everything is like that. Park benches you don’t glance at twice might be the most important place in the whole world to someone. Your house may be the whole life of the person who lived there before you. And you would have no idea.

Every moment in that house stands out against a boring blurred background. But those people have no idea. Everything that happened to us over the two years felt Louder than Bombs. The euphoria and happiness we once felt now lends itself to sadness. Songs we used to sing at the top of our lungs now are bittersweet and broken. 

Everything has changed. And those people have no idea.

But no one, no one can take away what was Louder than Bombs.

~ Tara M.