Standing up after losing balance.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Drying my tears after drowning in them.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Taking a bite of food after hours of hunger.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Washing my face after looking like a mess.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Smiling for the first time after crying wild.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Slowly pulling you in the back of my brain.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Getting comfortable after all that discomfort.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Doing injustice to your existence.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Sliding you in my state of unconscious.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Celebrating happiness without you.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Sleeping peacefully in day or night.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Remembering you at seldom times.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Simply welling up tears in my eyes.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Starting to become independent of you.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Passing days without thinking about you.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Quietly hoping to meet you in Paradise.

I’m sorry for moving on.

Living my life after your death.

I’m sorry for moving on.

For all the little and big heinousness.

I’m sorry for moving on

But thats how this life goes on.

And I’m so sorry for moving on.

×∞ Adin

11 February 2021

As far as the eye can fathom,

knolls of grass unfurl,

a rolling expanse of virgin green,

alone, save the shelter of a blue sky,

and a tree.

Like a lone sentinel,

it stands proud.

Whipped by winds,

pelted by harsh rains,

its scarred husk stands firm.

It stands in a special place,

far away from technology,

away from future shopping malls,

housing projects, super highways;

but it stands close to the heart.

It was there a picnic was shared.

Where lover’s held hands,

and lover’s kissed,

and where twin lover’s initials

are forever carved.

If you were to drown, I would teach you to fish,

because teach a man to swim, he’ll go hungry tomorrow,

teach a man to fish, and he’ll always have something in his belly,

to weigh him down.

If you would catch fire, I would teach you to cook.

because if you burned your bridges,

you’d better know how to make lemonade.

If you cried for help, I’d teach you to sing.

because no one likes complainers in this world,

but music makes the world go around.

If you were down in the dumps, I’d teach you math,

because knowing what you miss is not as important,

as knowing how much of it is gone.

There is a hole in the back corner of the fence around my house just wide enough to fit through if you turn sideways. It connects to the backyard of a pale yellow house with two pale, white-blonde children who sit on their back deck, feet bare, orange popsicle juice dripping down their chins. We peek through this splintered gate between our houses, knowing that in this summer air, seeing each other is almost always an invitation to run and play. Sneaky glances and shrill yells tell our parents where we are going as we slip sideways through the wooden slats. Sometimes the boys next door join us, increasing our gang to eight. They tumble their way into our lives with loud voices and wrestling moves. I’ve never had brothers, but with them it feels close enough to count. All of us sit in a row, variations of sun kissed blonde hair and sunburned cheeks, a rainbow of popsicle juice sticking up our fingers and staining our tongues. Sometimes we chase the ice cream truck instead, worn dollars from our allowances clutched in our hands. Most of the time we just listen to its tune, a soundtrack to our summer, an acknowledgement to our childhood. As we grow older, our group splinters in a similar way to the fence we still slip through. Not broken, just worn. Our range of ages more apparent, some too old, some too young. We are a straining rubber band, strung together by our childhood but stretched by our experiences, by the people we have all become. We remain taut, strong enough not to break, but never with the closeness we once had. I can’t remember the last time I let popsicle juice drip down my fingers, the last time we sat next to each other on the deck, our laughter being carried by the wind. It’s weird to think about that space and time that occupied our childhood, when we were a collective “kids”, not worried about our ages or our grades, about the friends we had or the games we chose to play. Kenzie left first, weaving in and out of our story as she entered each new chapter before us. David left second, his interests and ambitions not quite overlapping, his joy not found as often in the storybook of our neighborhood. Nell left third, always a call away but still a step ahead. Sydney and I left at the same time, always in match on our paths even when they began to diverge. We left behind the others. Mark. Ally. Taylor. I don’t know when they’ll leave the refuge that was our row of houses. Taylor will go last, always jumping to catch up. But we will all go. We went from kindergarten to college, from diving in the pool to driving in the car. The yellow swings that once carried us back and forth have disappeared from the back yard. Our chalk drawings have long since been washed away by rain. My memories remain, of climbing trees and foam swords, of halloween and hills explored. A part of me will always be sitting on the back of that deck, legs hanging off the edge, with seven other children next to me. The eight of us might never sit on the deck the way we used to, but we intertwine back together in groups of two, three, four, five, eight. We go back for fireworks in the backyard and burgers on the grill. We go back for casual conversation and meet-ups at the coffee shop on the corner. We go back for memories of smiles, and laughter, and popsicle juice dripping down our fingers.

This piece gets me. It is the ice at the bottom of the whiskey sour, what remains after everything else I've written on Prose.

It is the first entry, the first piece I ever wrote on here.

The below is actually the edited version, which I submitted to another challenge many months ago. This is its third time seeing the sun.

On a hot, lonely day in April three years ago, this is what I had to give.

I hope it glows in your eyes. It glows in mine.

xx

David has round eyes. And right now, they are full of sadness and deep concern.

“This makes me realize,” he says, “that it’s in the cards.”

David is legitimately crying. Tears are seeping into the top of his buttoned up collared shirt. By day, he works at the largest insurance firm in the greater Boston area. A job he loves. But he has admitted that when he leaves his office, he blasts jazz in his car to prevent panic attacks and crying jags.

I stare at the floor. It’s like watching a stranger cry on the bus. I wonder what happened.

David says, “It makes me realize that Abby, one of us, could not show up here one day. It would be over.”

The group leader finally turns to me. Abby, how does that make you feel?

I don’t know, what would it be like to feel anything right now?

I hate this question.

David, in some twisted way, is getting to the Heart of Group Therapy. Suicide is always lurking in the back of our mentally ill minds. For some reason, I always think of my insurance company here, checking the box of: Ok, Abby is suicidal, coverage is approved.

But is this more than money? I think back to the aftermath in the ER, after the Ativan. I apologized. To everyone. My body on the hospital bed. Taking someone’s place.

We don’t pump stomachs anymore. Too much damage. We wait it out.

No matter what?

My war is against my very being, my soul. As I watch David cry, I retreat to a familiar place.

My body is sitting and staring, not looking or fighting.

Dear God,

This week, in my studies of the African diaspora, I have found myself reflecting on the roots of my beliefs in you and Christianity. When I was reading “Altars-Puntos” for class, the question that struck me the most was “What stories bring us into being?”. In the reading, this question referred to the ways in which frameworks of gender and secxuality were discussed by criollo traditionalists, in that the stories of their faith disrupted Christian based ideas of “gender binaries and hetero-complementarity”. When I read this, it made me consider the ways in which my own existence in my gender identity and were shaped by stories from my faith growing up, and how they have since changed.

As a child, I remember my favorite Bible stories usually included strong women. The story of Esther, for example, really resonated with me. I remember thinking she was brave for standing up to those in power and demanding protection for her people, the Jews, who were going to be massacred throughout the Persian empire on order from Haman, the king’s chief minister. She was everything I felt a woman of God should be; strong in her faith and committed to doing what was right. Knowing this, I feel that the story of Esther cemented the knowledge in me that women were meant to be strong, courageous, and were to fight against injustice (though when I was younger I admit I was more fascinated by the fact that she got to marry a king).

The next story I remember most vividly is the story of Jesus’ mother, Mary, who was chosen by you to bring your son into the world. Mary, to me, was the ultimate maternal figure. I envisioned her as warm, nurturing, beautiful, and kind-hearted. I was so enthralled by her that I remember distinctly the jealousy I felt towards the girls in the church Christmas pageant who played Mary in the nativity scene every year. I thought she was brave for accepting the role of mother to Jesus with a servant’s heart, in spite of her fear. Her story made me believe that as a woman, I was meant to one day raise children and provide care for them. Though now, as an adult, I realize the choice to have a child is very personal and absolutely not mandatory in fulfilling the role of “woman”, I still look forward to being a mother one day.

Since joining my youth group in college, I find myself still being drawn to Bible stories involving strong women, but they differ a bit from the stories I heard growing up. My new favorite Bible story is the one about the Samaritan woman at the well, who meets Jesus. She does not hold the same “purity” that Mary or Esther have in the tellings of their stories. The Samaritan woman is an outcast amongst her people, having been married many times in the past and having a lover that is not her husband. And yet, Jesus shows her love and respect that shocks his own disciples. I love this story because it taught me that being a woman of God does not mean you have to be perfect, or pure, or blameless to be worthy of affection from the Lord. You can be Mary, or Esther, or the Samaritan woman, and can still experience the same kind of love.

These three stories in their own ways have had their own role in bringing who I am now into being, as the woman I am today. When I reflect on the stories of Mary and Esther, I can see myself as a young girl in Sunday school, sitting cross-legged on the floor with my other classmates, listening to the instructor finish up their lesson before our parents arrived from church service to pick us up. That little girl had no concept of any belief system other than the Christianity that she learned from her parents and her church leaders, and had no idea of the stories different from the ones she was hearing that could bring others into existence. When I hear the story of the Samaritan woman, I picture myself sitting at a desk in a Straub classroom, a young woman, surrounded by other students of my youth group. I can look around the classroom and see the differences that shape us. There is a Latinx student who grew up hearing the same Bible stories that I did in church, but in Spanish. There is a student who leads the “Queer and Christian” small group who grew up hearing the Bible stories I did, while in an environment that was not fully accepting of them. There is a Black youth group leader who talks about how boring white churches are when they sing hymns, in comparison to the loud and lively way her church sang them when she was growing up.

For criollo traditionalists, the stories that brought them into being upheld the framework that individuals of any gender or sexual identity are validated in their experiences, as these experiences are shaped by different “forces of nature”. In my experience, the stories that have brought me into being are both the Bible stories I heard growing up, and now the stories of others who have had very different lives than my own because of their race, sexual orientation, or gender identity. My views of myself and the world are shaped by you, God, and the stories of those you bring into my life. You are the “force of nature” that allows me to broaden my own understanding of myself and the beautifully unique individuals you have created.

It is strange to think that one day, I will tell the Bible stories I heard growing up to my own children, who will be just like I was; brand new to the world and not yet able to comprehend all the stories that encompass it. When I tell them the stories of Mary and Esther, I will also remember to tell them of the Samaritan woman. And I will tell them other stories too; of the Latinx student who showed me you can take communion with tortillas instead of bread. And the “Queer and Christian” small group leader who created a safe space for LGBTQ+ individuals to hear these stories in peace. And the Black youth group leader who taught me how to sing hymns with more energy and feeling than I had ever felt before.

Thank you, God, for all the stories you have created and all those you have brought into being as a result.

Amen.

She looked up at me as she cried.

I gave her a hug and wiped her eyes.

I saw a fear in her that couldn’t be explained.

How do I tell her she would never see her father again?

Dear child, why do you cry and weep?

God has come and rocked your father to sleep.

He knew you would come to see him and not realize,

why he’s not talking to you, and he apologizes.

He told me to tell you, he will see you again one day.

Don’t worry about him, in the time that he is away.

He said he will watch over you, and watch you grow.

He said he will be at every graduation and ballerina show.

He told me that you might not see him because he has to hide.

He said name your favorite teddy bear after him and put him on your side.

So whenever you need to talk to him, or need a fatherly bear hug.

You can hug this bear from your father sent with his love

Ok, so I just spent an hour browsing through selections and excerpts of writing I did ten years ago. Whoa. Lots of words not really saying anything. I’m a verbose little bastard, but haven’t won any cigars yet. To be good at anything, you have to do it everyday. Spilling it all out like a child dumping his toy chest on the floor, then walking away, distracted by something else, leaving the whole mess for mommy to clean up...yeah, that ain’t gonna win any kewpie dolls either, unless you’re writing MTV music video scripts.

Maybe it’s good to go back and revisit old paths overgrown with noxious weeds. I tried to remember, pick up where I’d left off, but the trails had run cold. I discovered I wasn’t that writer anymore, I’m over here now. I dunno if that’s good or bad, but it is what it is and the only thing left to do is keep writing and exploring ideas from the sanctity of my off-grid, polar fortress of solitude. There are many old stories I haven’t told yet, many experiences that took until now to uncover the message within. Daily cobbling and scribbling is the only method by which to tell whether a story has anything left in it. My narratives will continue to evolve until either I quit, or die.

If you ask me at this very moment, I’ll answer I’m going to continue anvil hammering anecdotes, and sketch plots while canoeing across the Potomac. I just have to visit the meadow and butterfly net the words first. But instead of killing them, (those darlings) and pinning them to a board to be glazed and framed, I think it better to water board them in a cheese fondue and devour them on the spot. At least that’s how I feel today while writing this note. I can always go in and adjust my latest ink ribbon efforts later, post digestion, followed with a little aperitif or antacid or nice, calm stroll through the forest. Or more realistically, chase my hot mess fiction with a shot of Jack, a stomach pump and then try and out run a winter pack of starving wolves.

I entertain the delusion it’s possible to take an old idea, strip mine a line or two, talc it with the original flavor and send it to the publisher for starch pressing. But basically I’ll have to start fresh. Each time I write, I want to start fresh. Only the most original and creative of new ideas can start this way. So didja hear the one about the leopard and his spots?

#sharewiththeclass #challenge

Pain is a tool. That’s what I’ve learned in my fifteen-almost-sixteen years on this earth. You can wield it like a knife, or use it like a hammer to nail your life back together.

Or you can use it as a shovel, to dig your own grave.

I stole Dr. Marsheen’s pen. She doesn’t need it. It’s in a jar with a dozen others just like it. All of the pens, and the jar they’re in, are emblazoned with the company logo and name.

“Happy Trails: Your Trail To Recovery,” and under that, a big, smiling cartoon sun. I mean, what am I, eight? Why did Aunt Tracy send me to this place?

Dr. Lily A. Marsheen (the name on the business card on her desk) is outside, at the front desk with my aunt, figuring out copays and all that adult shit that I’m not supposed to know about (it might “stress me out”) but I do anyway. After dumping hundreds of dollars a month into therapy, Aunt Tracy should realize she can’t do shit to fix me. It’s like trying to put together a chopped up dead body with duct tape and expecting it to come to life, Frankenstein-style.

Tic-tic-tic-tic. I drum out some obscure rhythm with the clicking of the pen. I make a game out of it— recreating trashy pop songs with a pen. I could start a YouTube channel. The Happy Trails Pen Songs or some shit like that.

Unfortunately, Marsheen walks in, and stares at the pen in my hands, turning to her computer screen and tapping away. Probably taking notes on my obsessive clicking. I guess, in the end, that’s why I’m here. I just can’t stop clicking. I sync my clicking with her clicking. Tap (click). Tap-tap (click-click). Tap-tap-tap-tap (click-click-click-click). Tap (click). Tap-tap (click-click).

She glares at me through thick-rimmed glasses. They’re round, like Harry Potter, but rather than making her look almost innocent and iconic, they make her look stupid. And they’re dark green, clashing with her red-patterned button-down shirt and black sweatpants. Like she’s trying too hard to be casual. Gross.

Me, I’m in my staple clothing. Jeans, a random t-shirt, and a hoodie. Black Converse. One stud earring, in my left ear. And in the back pocket of my jeans, a shard of mirror, poking into my ass. Reminding me. Keeping me just uncomfortable enough that I don’t slip up and reveal something important to this badly-dressed bitch.

“Hi,” she says warmly. “I’m Lily Marsheen.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Lady, you think I’d come in here without even knowing your name? Bitch please. Her painted smile opens wide, revealing rows of almost-perfect teeth. Perfect except for the subtle line on her front tooth, where it was obviously chipped off and replaced. I wonder if it hurt. I hope it did.

I’ve already decided this will be useless. She’s smiling, her legs crossed, her eyes always darting back to her computer screen. Probably watching porn. Or taking notes on me. Or both.

“Not a talker?” she asks, sounding almost sympathetic. That makes me smile. I am a talker. Aunt Tracy could tell her that. I just don’t want to talk to her. Therapy is like being in court. Anything you say can and will be used against you.

It’s cold in here, even with my sweatshirt, but I won’t shiver. I won’t give Marsheen the satisfaction.

“Why are you here today… Clementine?” Marsheen asks, turning to her computer screen to read the name printed there. Clementine Emmanuel-Forsolaz. Two last names. No middle name. That’s me.

“Do you want the itemized list? Oh wait, no, you already have that. You know why I’m here.”

“But why are you here? With me?”

“So you do want the itemized list. Okay: major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, ADHD, anorexia, psychotic symptoms, suicidal thoughts and actions, self harm… yeah, I think that’s it. Oh, and psychopathic… something or other.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

I stare at her perfect navy-blue-painted nails, coming to a thin point like mini-daggers. If I had nails like that, I could cut someone’s heart out. But my nails are bitten down almost to the bone. I can’t even open a soup can without using a spoon or something.

“I’m here,” I say, still staring at her nails, “because you’re the next name on my aunt’s list.”

“How many therapists are on this list?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I’ve been to eleven, including you. But God only knows how many more Aunt Tracy has stored in her underwear drawer.” I can hear her eyebrows raise before I see it.

“What do you mean by that?” I can also hear the disapproval in her voice, and I can’t resist a tiny smile.

“Oh, it’s just a phrase me and her use when we talk about keeping secrets. I’m sure you know the value of a good old fashioned underwear drawer when it comes to those kinds of things.” She grunts, sending a surge of satisfaction up my spine.

Everyone knows the power of secrets, especially those housed in a dark space full of undergarments.

“When did all of this start?”

I pretend to give this some thought. Rule #1: never give the same answer twice. It’s an insult to my creativity. So far, ages 7, 5, since my parents’ death, and 5th through 9th grade are taken. Damn. Fifth grade was my personal favorite “start date.” I’m sad to see it go, but that was what I gave to my last therapist. So fifth grade can’t be used again.

“I guess it’s been there forever,” I say. Could be true. I was going to therapy before the accident. ADHD. Not a big deal. Or maybe the real problem is just the PTSD, like my previous therapist, Kingfisher (his name was Luke, but I called him by his last name just to piss him off) says.

I call all my therapists by their last name. I don’t want to be on a first-name basis. Rule #2: therapists are not your friends. You can’t confide in them, or listen to them, or cry with them, or hang out on weekends with them. They can try and try, but they will never be your buddy.

Anything you say can and will be used against you.

No truer words have ever been said.

I think fifth grade was when it started, even though I didn’t start cutting until after the crash. Fifth grade… when I had my first crush.

Her name was Daisy Long. She had wavy brown hair that stretched to her waist, skin the color of a vanilla latte.

And she was very, very straight.

No, of course my parents didn’t care. Aunt Tracy doesn’t care, either. My family is and always has been very progressive. My ancestors were Quakers, you know, all that shit about tolerance and love and how we’re all God’s children, blah, blah, blah.

I don’t believe in God. My parents would drag me to church on Sunday, but I paid so little attention that I don’t even remember the name of the place, or what branch of Christianity it was. My parents were good people.

And God killed them. So rather than mope around and blame some all-powerful fuckwad, I decided to own up to the fact that there is no one out there.

Their death wasn’t God’s fault. It was mine.

“Clementine?”

Oh shit, Marsheen was actually talking. Rule #3: always hem and haw ever so often so they know you’re listening.

That’s one rule I already broke. Fuck.

“Yes?”

“I said, did anything happen to you at a young age?”

“Yes,” I say. “I was raped by my uncle last year, and he was so hairy I called him ape man.”

“Your uncle has been dead for years.” I grin; I can’t help it. I love making up random shit. Rape, kidnapping, bullying, sold to a circus because I’m left handed.

None of those are true. I mean, I am left handed. And I’ve had to deal with my fair share of Mean Girls and Jerk Guys. But I’ve never really been bullied. After my English teacher called me a “lezbo slut,” I moved schools before any of the kids even had a chance to pick on me.

“Maybe I was ‘hallucinating’ him,” I say, wiggling my fingers like a cheesy vampire in a school play.

“Your illness is not a joke,” Marsheen says, frowning.

You’re telling me, bitch. I live with my illness. There’s nothing funny about it.

“Well,” I say. “Aside from Ape Man, my uncle, the only trigger was my parent’s death last year.”

“Can you tell me about that?”

“No. I don’t remember.” That’s one thing I never change the answer to. I tell all of my therapists, every single one, that I don’t remember the car crash. As long as I don’t remember it, I don’t have to talk about it.

Logic.

“Do you know why that is?”

“Because my brain can’t handle it,” I say, reciting word-for-word what my first therapist, Mrs. Young (she wasn’t young, and she didn’t even have the privilege of having “Dr.” before her name.) told me. “Jesus, don’t you have notes from any of the other therapists? Do you really need to know this again? Y’all need some originality. Seriously.”

“I need to hear it from you. So, you say your brain can’t handle it? That’s a brave accusation.”

Wow, that’s the first thing she’s said that doesn’t end in a question. I feel skilled.

“Just spitting back what everyone else says,” I say. “A wise decision, in today’s society.”

“And why do you think they all say the same things?” I stretch my legs into the air. Bor-ing.

“You have to go through it to understand it. Terrible but true.”

“So does anyone understand you?”

“I could argue for both sides of that argument. No one with any influence understands me. No one listens to kids.”

“It seems like you have a dark outlook on life.”

“Life has a dark outlook on me.”

“Is this boring you?’

“Not at all, I love answering the same questions over and over again.”

“So what would you like to do?” Marsheen says, catching on to my very subtle sarcasm.

“I want to play Coping Skill Flash Cards, I want to play off-brand Emotions Board Games. I want to talk about my problems until your ears fall off.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing in this shithole of an office that I want to do,” I burst. “Except maybe shove your perfectly manicured nails up your white ass.”

I didn’t mean to say that. That was a definite mistake. Rule #... I lost track. Four? Eight?: never, and I mean never, say anything that tips off the therapist.

Marsheen’s eyes widen, and I’m not sorry to say that I get a large amount of satisfaction seeing her hands tighten on the arms of her chair.

“I-I’m going to talk to your aunt. I think— I think we’re done for the day.” I shrug and walk out of the room. Nothing I can do to stop it, right?

Two rules broken, and it’s only day one.

I get the feeling this is going to be one interesting year.

I wonder if I’ll see Marsheen again. But it’s not like it matters. The less time I spend in her stifling cotton-candy colored office, the better.

I can hear Aunt Tracy and Marsheen talk over the sound of the white noise machines. They’re a nice touch when you first arrive, but they can’t do anything to stop someone from listening if they really want to. I don’t know why they still have them. They don’t work. All that confidentiality shit is really just a load of bull. The flyers say “I’ll keep your secrets as long as it isn’t a danger to yourself or others.” Well, I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t a threat to myself or others.

I wonder if someone was listening to me. Pressing their ear against the door, leaning into the thick oak wood, desperate to hear the sound of my voice. To incriminate me for something. To spy, although why anyone wants to spy on me is lost to me. I mean, really. I’m just your average depressed teenage freak. Nothing special here.

But I can’t shake the feeling that someone was listening. I can almost imagine the sound of their breath, controlled and even to blend in with the white noise machines.

In the corner of my eye, I see a shadow, and I whirl around to face it.

The hallway is empty.

Back to listening to Aunt Tracy and Marsheen.

“Keep bringing her here,” Marsheen says. “I think the other therapists she’s been to are right, she does seem to display some psychopathic tendencies.” Ah. So that’s the word I was looking for earlier. Tendencies. “I think it would be in her best interest to attend a behavioral school.” I winced as I could almost picture Aunt Tracy nodding. She couldn’t do this to me. Didn’t she know how much I needed my friends? “I know a great one, it’s called Forest Step. I know the principal and his daughter. They are good people”

“We’ll look into it,” Aunt Tracy says, bringing stinging tears to my eyes. No. She can’t. She can’t do this.

Seeing another patient coming down the halls, I duck my head down and sprint (as inconspicuously as possible) to the bathroom.

No matter where you are, they always have a bathroom. My safe place.

I sit on the toilet seat with my pants still on. I feel the sharp dig of the mirror in my pocket. The perfect mirror. Broken, but perfect.

Perfect for what I use it for, anyway.

It’s too easy. The first time it’s hard. You gasp. Tears fill your eyes. But soon, you can slice yourself open without feeling a thing.

“Dad, do I have to go?”

“Yes, Clementine, we’ve been over this. You are a bright student, and you need Dr. Lakely to help with your ADHD or else all of your talent will be wasted.” I scoff.

“It doesn’t work. Obviously.”

“It takes time,” my mom says patiently. “You’ll see.”

“But⁠—”

“No buts, Clem! Come on! If you just gave Dr. Lakely a chance, we wouldn’t have to be here! You’d be fine!” In a split second of horrific clarity, he turns to me, and I see my mom’s mouth form an O.

“Dad!” I scream, as the huge pickup truck slams into the front of the car.

That’s about up to where I remember. There was a small piece of the car left— this piece of mirror. Rather than give it to the doctors, I kept it.

That car had been with me my whole life, all 13 years, so much so that I even named it: Beastie. Not the most creative, but it worked. And after these thirteen years, Beastie was crushed into a pile of scrap metal. What does it say about me that my first thought was not of my mom, or my dad, but of the car.

Poor Beastie. And then I remember feeling the pain in my head, a migraine level headache that hit my brain like a sack of bricks. Like a slap to my face, worry for my parents hit me.

And then I screamed. I begged the doctors to let me see my parents, just for a second. They said no way, both me and them were in too unstable condition.

I remember the next five minutes in a red haze. Ignoring the pain flooding my body, I crashed into my dad’s room (the closest to me) and immediately regretted it.

His eyes were closed. It was the only part of him I could see, the rest of his body was blanketed in white bandages. In several places, you could see where his wounds were bleeding through. I glanced at his heart rate monitor and watched, mesmerized, at the painfully slow, delicate beats. At that moment of shock, my whole body froze. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t hear anything but my own fast heartbeat in my ears. I wondered if I could give some of my heartbeat to him, so we could share, and his could be faster and mine could be slower, right where they are supposed to be.

I never saw my mom until they wheeled her out under a sheet. They tried to hide it from me, but she ended up being wheeled right past my room, and as she passed, an eerily convenient wind blew the sheet back so I could see her face.

I might be a crier, but I’ve never cried as much as I did when I saw that. First my dad, brain dead but his heart still beating. At least he was alive. But my mom… I never got to say goodbye. My dad, I did. And after that, well I just figured that I couldn’t lose both my parents. That was against the laws of nature.

Apparently nature took a day off. I went home with Aunt Tracy.

And here I am, several months later, with a bleeding wrist and a shining piece of Old Beastie in my other hand.

This right here is real therapy. The red lines on my wrist are like lines on a receipt, tallying up all the debt I owe to my parents that I never got to repay.

Everybody tries to find what I use. But I protect this with my life. If someone were to find this, I would lose the only part of my parents I have left. It’s only been a year, but even their memories are fading, like photos on a roll of film that is slowly being overexposed to the sun.

Oh sure, people tried to find this thing. Tried to bust me, expecting to find a hobby knife or something. But they never found this. The last remnant of my old life. Sometimes it was in a shoe, between the pages of a diary, in my mouth. The result was always the same.

They never found it. Or they found one of my many decoys, decorating spots in my room where I know they will look.

My soft cries are on mute. I learned how to cry silently a long time ago, so here I am. Crying silently in a stall in the girl’s restroom in the place that’s supposed to help me, but instead just makes me wish I could die. Die the way you die in fairy tales, floating away on a puffy white cloud, or climbing a ladder into the light.

I want to float away. Maybe OD on sleeping pills, so I can drift slowly into oblivion.

Just like a fairy tale. A peaceful death. A painless death.

But I don’t deserve that. My death should be long and slow and agonizing.

Just like my parents.

Outside Space, time multi-dimensional worlds, dwells the Ancient One.

The Ancient Ones’ with this inception of power given to his Right hand and His understanding of Space, time multi-dimensional universe establishes a starting point of worlds. At this moment, it sets the course for countless worlds to have purpose.

To maintain order, he manufactures in his mind a perfect hierarchy. The one by one order is taking shape.

The Ancient One is the established Ruler over all; His Word is perfect and the instruction to all multi-dimensional worlds he has established. His Power is the course of strength, counsel, understanding and wisdom for all multi-dimensional worlds he has established. The Ancient One proclaims rule as one, and we will as one rule and dwell.

The Ancient as we are one, formed five creatures of light. He made one of the four creatures greater than the others. This one is the leader, having a purpose to production of music for the newly formed throne room outside space and time.