Today I read an essay written by Ana Rukavina during her second year of high school, when she was 15 years old. The essay was written 14 years before her premature death!
Tomorrow I’m going to a world called Heaven
Tomorrow I’m going to a world called heaven, because it is not worth crying about life. I love you…but the light is tempting me. With tears in my eyes, I am thinking while tiny drops of rain are falling and the snow is melting, red from blood and my love. While I look at you, the people I love, I quietly kiss the earth and leave. I loved my life and my youth, but they took it all away from me slowly and suddenly. I prayed that they would understand me, because one day, when life wears me out, maybe I will not have the strength to start again. Now I am far away, near some other river and I am listening to some other wind. My hair is sticking together, my hands are red, my eyes are grey and moist, as wilted grass under the snow, as an icy stare, the quiet sky is still blue.
I am slowly leaving and you have not noticed. I am leaving alone and…singing. Quietly, but I’m singing. I won’t be distracted by strange words and hate. I believe that there is much love in every man. I promise to think about you often, and you must promise to think of me as well.Are you asking why I’m crying? I am crying because I am a person of flesh and blood. I am crying because they taught me to cry. I am crying because this entire world is a huge graveyard. People die and take part of the past with them. They die and there is no end to it. We ask if someone has the power to stop all of it. If we all tried together maybe we could even succeed, however, we are far from that right now. On the other side of the street.
When you feel the same way I do, a white butterfly will come for you and take you to a world of dreams…where I will be waiting for you. The wind will sing about you, the leaves will be dying on the branches, and we will cry. One word will be enough. One look, cold and not too honest. Just one goodbye and everything will seem as if it happened so long ago.
Yours truly, Ana