It's Goodbye and It Hurts

My eyes hurt with the tears I've been crying for the past three days, when it settled in, when the weight never lifted.

He stands across from the tarmac, out on the street, waiting for the plane to leave. Waiting for it to fly into the sunset.

I look out the window as we take off, gain altitude, carry on with our lives as my world implodes into a million microscopic fragments while Florence and The Machine screams "There's no salvation for me now" in my ears.

The sunset is calm and beautiful, soft orange against bright pink, against soft blue. It's a sunset for the ages. I just wish he was here to see it with me.

But no, he's on the street, across the tarmac, watching me leave.

You, Me, and The Lonely Tree

There has always been this sadness, like a fog, obscuring my thoughts, my actions, my sight. There has always been this aloofness, like a storm around me, and I, at the eye. There has always been this coldness, a wind brought on by the month I was born, it seeped into my lungs when I drew my first breath. There has always been this loneliness, it houses me, like a balete tree, its roots deep, its branches wide, its vines so thick, I barely see the storm raging outside. It only allows me to see sunsets: the bright warring oranges and violets and pinks before the sky becomes a void, and I am, once again, sheltered by the balete tree that is my loneliness. There has always been this affinity for endings and death, and the relief they bring.
Then there was you, braving the fog, the storm, the cold, the giant tree with its fortifications. There was you, and you stepped into my cell of loneliness and self-doubt, and held my ice cold hands in yours. There was you, and you made me think that maybe life would be more interesting than all those endings, maybe death was not as beautiful a relief as the fire you gave me that had finally begun to bring me warmth.  There was you, and you wrapped me in your arms and waited patiently for me to thaw out, whispering loving words I could not reciprocate wholely, not then, not yet. There was you , and your warmth, and this fuzzy feeling you awoke in me the moment we shared our first sunset. There was you, and your smile, and you were with me in the eye of the storm, in the middle of the fog, under the lonely tree, huddled together for shelter against the cold.
Then there was me, again, finally, truly, all thawed out and alive. Now, there's us. It's a strange feeling, but I welcome it. It's foreign to me, to give someone this much power to hurt me, but you have it. It terrifies the cold out of me, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I am happy with you, under my lonely tree, waiting for the next sunrise.

Reasons Why

they ask why nothing happy comes from the pen that you wield, why every letter and every rhyme feels like raindrops on tin roofs and gray clouds forked with lightning. they ask why, when you feel no-one's watching, your eyes turn the same shade of dead that gray walls carry. they ask why your lips seem to break when you smile, concrete breaking cracking open. They ask why your silence never comes, why it's always so loud, so noisy ,a million music boxes playing at once.

they don't see. they don't see the misplaced guilt pushed upon you from birth. unspoken curses, unwanted circumstances, regrets denied over and over, but felt deep in your bones, in your heart, in your mind. they don't see that dead was what you were supposed to be. never meant to scream as you exited the darkness, never meant to breathe, never meant to wield such destruction on a forced union, never meant to be the cause of it. they don't see the poison seeping through your pores, running through your blood, dripping from your fangs. poison passed down from feeling, knowing, you are unwanted, unneeded, a mistake. poison from arguments done in dark corners, waking up in the morning feeling like you've walked into a pristine war zone. they don't see the knife in your mind ready, willing, able to slice, to cut, to kill, to bring, finally, the respite you've been craving since you were seven. they don't see that quiet makes you think and thinking lets the voices in. thinking lets in the guilt, makes you feel. silence calls attention to the poison in their words, to the denial in their eyes, the disappointment in the curves of their mouths, and the furrows of their brows. silence makes you hear it: that your existence is an unfortunate gift that has ruined the lives of two people through their union.

They ask why you still keep going. I'm too afraid to end it all.

Is it?

Hearts beat in time with the acoustic guitar in the background. Slow, sad, sweet, and with the knowledge that things aren't the same.

There's a change in the air: in between guitar chords and breaths, in between stolen glances and held hands. In the silence between two hearts unsung melodies take over, creating and recreating different sides of the same beings. Slowly, hands let go and drift further from each other, lips no longer meet for the same kisses, hearts no longer beat to the same tune. 

Is it worth it? To let go only to return disparate, looking for the same hand to hold? Are you the same heart? Do you still have one?

Is this, still, all you ever wanted?

Croissants and Afternoon Tea

In a little bakery in the basement of a local supermarket, surrounded by the most enticing smells of butter, bread, coffee, and sipping iced hibiscus tea, I lost my mind... 

Again.

I inhale the scent of butter, deeply. Letting it fill my lungs, I savor the tea I am drinking, trying not to get lost in the noise of everything and everywhere. Silently and desperately looking for something to anchor me to the present.

Butter, bread, tea, coffee, I recite the scents in my mind over and over, trying to engrave the reality of everything into my rapidly detaching brain. Croissants, I smell croissants. I tell myself to focus on the smell of the pastry. F-O-C-U-S. C-R-O-I-S-S-A-N-T. Remind myself I am here, in this bakery, surrounded by people.

Do not cry. Focus. Tea. Croissant. Focus. Feel something, no, not THAT FEELING. Find something. Do not breakdown. Bakery, supermarket, butter, coffee, cookies. Recite, rewind. But I've already lost it. 

I've already lost my mind.

Fiction 3

You sit beside me on the bench, I am in shock. Where have you been all this time? You look different, and you don't feel the same. Hair is shorter than five years ago, when you literally walked out the door and I never saw you again. Everything is different, but your smile is the same.

“How are you?” you ask, voice calm, steady. Your light gray shirt almost looks white in in the blinding sunlight, denim jeans a little worn at the knees, and white chucks that look like the ones you always used to college.

I don't know how to react. I don't know you anymore. “Dead inside,” I decide to answer after a long pause as the incredulous look fades from my face.

“That sounds familiar,” You grin.

“You don't,” I counter, looking away from a smile I thought I had loved once. Something about the way you look at me makes me think you know your magic has worn off.

“No more pining for a love that never was?” you ask, a sad glint in your usually mischievous eyes. They used to be so full of disdain, and disappointment at the world around you, so full of pain waiting to be passed on to me. I would take it, all of it. I didn't care. I thought I loved you.

I shake my head, “I never loved you,” I say resolutely, knowing you'll see through my lie. You know me too well, you always have.

“You did,” You state, so sure of yourself, you over confident, obnoxious bastard.

I laugh, “I was stupid.” I look up at the tree shading us just like it did when we were in college, “It wasn't real love.”

It's your turn to laugh, “How was it not real?”

“You never loved me back,” I declare, deadpan. I look at you this time, trying to finally see through the facade, the camera filters and the pedestals I put in place for you.

You fidget nervously, the same way you do when you find out you're wrong about something and don't want to ever admit it.

“You don't have to say anything,” I say, still looking at you intently, watching you squirm for once, letting my gaze fall heavily on the guilt I see simmering to the surface, “It's done. I've figured out why you fascinated me so much.”

“Oh?” You raise a condescending eyebrow and I want to rip it off with my bare hands.

“Yes,” I nod, looking at the building we used to call our school, “You made me live with the side of me I never wanted to see. Every single demon and monster in me, you brought them to the surface, you taught me to care for them, to feed them. Then I saw that they were your demons and monsters, too.”

You sit in silence, I don't know if I'm making sense or if you're listening. Maybe you're doing that zoning out thing you're really good at again. But I continue anyway.

“I was afraid,” I admit, “I was so afraid of what I had become, afraid of all this... this darkness you so readily set forth in front of me like a banquet, like a badge I should be proud of. I was so afraid of these monstrosities hidden inside me that your voice was the only thing that could save me. I couldn't save myself, I never tried. Then you left, like that,” I snap my fingers, “And there I was grappling with whatever you had called out, making you the inspiration of my misery, my sadness, my heartbreak... all the things I wrote down. I made you a beacon, and all you did was laugh at me.”

You try to wrap your arm around my shoulder like you used to when you'd break my heart and I'd let you haphazardly stitch it back together. But I shrug you off.

“I'm not letting you fix anything this time,” I stand, “I did that myself. I don't need you or your memory anymore. I never loved you, because real love is returned.”

I walk away, decisively, finally.

I don't look back, not anymore.

You were the horrible boy who made me laugh once. That was it. That is all.

Break

Everything is heavy:

The head, the heart, the body, the soul-- if it's still there.

On the brink of nuclear meltdown,

somewhere, there's a crack that can't be found or fixed.

All that can be done is to sit, wait, hope for the best.

But it's not a nuclear reactor melting,

it's you.

Hugging your knees in the middle of the night,

trying to swallow sobs as everything grips you,

all at once, all too quickly.

The wind is warm, and yet,

you feel like your heart is pumping icicles

into the freezing rivers that are your veins.

There are voices in your head,

telling you it's alright,

everything's fine.

But there are mobs in there,too.

Screaming profanities, infidelities,

injustices, and flaws.

You hear them above all else.

Barely breathing as you try to not drown in your own tears,

as you struggle for a breath,

the staggered kind,

when it feels like your lungs are racing to catch something,

anything, to fill them, to help them move.

Your heart is beating in a staccato beat,

you can barely tell when one beat ends

and another begins.

But there you sit,

knees to your chest, 

tears streaming down your face,

choking back sob after sob,

as you wage war against yourself.

There you sit,

a hollow shell,

an unrecognizable human.

Because the last time you really,

truly looked,

you were still alive.

Mid Youth Crisis

25, and still, stuck in a town I always said I'd leave. 

Is this all there is for me? 
Follow in the footsteps of my parents and just... Be? 

Is this all I'm supposed to amount to? 

A simple breath upon this earth? 

A west wind so faint, no one feels its passing? 

No songs, no prose, no monuments, or fanfare? 

Just a voice that will fade along with the voices of many others who came before me; all the others who left no mark before me. 

I am a line in the sand, trying to become a bay, a pool, even a puddle, before the tide comes back to eradicate everything that I've made, everything that I am.
But here I am struggling and fighting against the rising tides, the waves that will erase me from being. 

Digging deeper and deeper, trying to peave a mark, a memory, a monument; anything except a tombstone and tears.
I am stuck. 

I am stuck trying to move, trying to create a semblance of SOMETHING, trying to touch as many lives as possible, trying to CREATE something that will REMEMBER.
25, and still, in a sea of faces, you wouldn't see me.

R E V I S I T

I sit alone in a restaurant, it feels weird after a year or so of never sitting alone. Nothing's wrong, I'm just really hungry. So I sit alone, and look through my phone until I stumble upon a memory I never thought I'd ever see out of that proverbial rug I stuffed it under two years ago.

Golden flecks from brown eyes I know I'll never see again assail my thoughts as I struggle to finish reading whatever idiotic little puff piece I wrote about some douche (he wasn't, really, it's just easier to think of him that way) I used to pine for when I was twenty years old. Stupid girl.

You write it down, and write it down again.

Did I not understand, that the thing about writing things down is that you can't take the ink back?

So I carry on reading about how he used perfect grammar and understood the importance of commas, how he liked The 1975, how he always said goodnight when he could have left the conversation hanging like SOME guys I used to like. I read about how after months of absolute gray existence, I felt life trickle back into my veins.

Oh, how stupid. I didn't want love, I just wanted a good time.

Burn it, bury it, hide it.

Some guys just aren't worth it, but he was nice enough to be. Polite, smart, and wonderfully not arrogant. He wouldn't rub his car knowledge in your face, or make you feel inferior. I understand now, he was a breath of fresh air, a primer for what I would find after. A sort of crash course on how to handle the nice guy, because I found one.

I read about how I'll remember that he never liked travelling in the rain every time the sky darkens and lets forth its weight in water. But I don't anymore, the rain is just rain to me, now. Poetic, wonderful, addictive melancholia, but just the rain, all the same.

 His story's covered by others now, under the rug I keep in my brain. 

So over a meal of Korean fried chicken and spicy ramen where I struggle with my chopsticks, I decide to use my fork, and to clean out the rug in my mind. I have no time for this, and I have better, brighter, happier stories to tell now.

The Eulogies I Never Got to Say, Part 1: Nana

It has been seventeen years since you succumbed to bone cancer, and my heart still breaks every time I think about it. It's been seventeen years and I haven't gotten closure yet. I still haven't recovered form the loss of your light.

To most people, you were the caretaker of my mother and her sisters, and then you took care of their grandparents, my great grand parents. To others, you were a cook, whose food still stirs up pleasant memories of college until now. To a few, you were a friend, a sister, a guiding force. To me, you were, quite simply, Nana: one of the pillars a lonely little girl had to lean upon.

I was so young when you died. All I could do was cry at your bedside as you suffered through your sickness, and cry some more when you didn't wake up that morning. I wasn't able to attend your funeral. They took you back to your family home.

I remember your voice, a bit raspy from all the cigarettes that eventually killed you. I remember your always short hair, black tinged with gray by the time you were sick. I remember your face, wrinkled after 32 years of caring for children who weren't yours. I recall your laughs over a card game, or something someone said or did. I remember, most of all, you cooking in that old bamboo and nipa kitchen that was separated from the old house. I remember the cement sink, and the wood fires. I remember all this with such clarity because if I wasn't in front of the TV, I was in your kitchen bothering you about something while you cooked. I always liked watching you cook. It always seemed like magic to me. One minute there's uncooked fish on the table next to a few cut spices, the next minute, dinner's ready.

To me, you were warmth, and childhood happiness eating chocolate ice candy. No one makes ice candy like you did. You were there before I was born, and every day since, until that summer when I never saw you again. I wish I knew what it meant when you got sick. You never got sick before, I thought you'd get up one day and start getting ready to go to the market at 4 am like you usually did. I'm sorry. I never got to tell you things that I should have, and it seems unfair to have to say them now that you've been gone for so long. But I know you're watching over us like you always did.

I still don't know how to cook your Bangus Steak, Nana. But I'm trying.

Drums and Blood

The drumbeat sounds like bullets fired from a gun held by someone who should never have it. 
It sounds like disappointment and regret, and all your childhood fears of never being perfect.
They pierce through you, and you feel the blood flow, but not from the bullet wounds in your head. 
The stream of red flows down your arm, and you watch as rivulets of your life source flows from the gash you've made on your arm and onto the purple bed sheet, making black dots in the process.
You watch in morbid fascination as you take your switch blade, and run it lightly across your arm again, watching the line turn white, then pink, and then finally red, and blood spurts from the wound like an underground spring.
The droplets of black turn into a puddle, and you know this will stain.
You ask yourself why you've done this. It's simple.
You felt like there was too much blood in your veins, pumping through your brain.
You could hear the whoosh and slush of it as it rushed through your skull, it made too much noise. 
It sounded too much like the world outside.
The red river has gotten thicker but flows slower now, more languidly, and you stare at it as your head finally lightens, and realize you need to sleep.
You don't know if the drumbeats will be able to wake you up this time.

All My Faults

I'm sorry if my sadness scares you, if it makes you angry and it makes me difficult to love.

I'm sorry if it's hard for you to see me lay it all out by your feet the darkness I use as a cloak and my tears that never cease.

I'm sorry if the rain clouds in my mind never seem to end, it's a perpetual battle for sunny days.

I'm sorry if I like the feeling of the rain so much, the way it drenches my emotions and weighs me down, it clouds my mind while the thunder and lightning flash behind my eyes. 

It's all I've ever known.

I'm sorry for the long moments of silence, if it makes you feel awkward, if it makes you worry. There's a war raging in my brain, it's been going on for eons.

Sometimes, I think I can hear the screams. 

I'm sorry if I don't smile as much as I used to, if my eyes are less alive. I just feel so dead inside. 

Sometimes, I wonder if there's still a soul stirring inside me, most days I don't feel my heart beating. 

I'm sorry if you don't want to hear what I have to say anymore, if my constant need for reassurance and a shoulder to cry on, for someone who understands annoys you.

I can't help it.

I have no one else.

I'm sorry.

Push

There are dark thoughts in my head, little tragedies that play back and forth like an overworn DVD disc, complete with glitches and scene jumps. There is a numbness in my brain, keeping it from feeling anything except emptiness. The words resonate and echo through it but they mean nothing, mere whisps of emotions long forgotten.
You see, I've staved off the darkness, I've grappled with it my whole life, for what is a girl to do in a world that does not want her? I've managed to keep it at bay for the longest time, but even the strongest of warriors falter.
So here it is, once again, this addictive sadness that creeps upon me like a fog, cool and familiar, it blankets around me like an old friend. It promises safety and painless surrender, it lulls me to sleep and makes me forget the trappings of my heart, the people I love, the people I need. It embraces me and shields me from the world that cares not for my voice, my presence, my existence. It tells me not to leave, not to fight it again.
I am tempted. The sweet surrender to the abyss and the emptiness, the numbness, the drag of crushing, weightless depression is sometimes too strong to resist. All I want is to push people away, make them unlove me, make them fear me, make them hate me. Because I need no one. All I need is me, and my perpetual rain cloud, and this numbing fog. I will be safe, I will be protected, I will be dead inside, but I will survive.

Hover

My fingers hover over the keyboard keys as I rack my brains for a train of thought that has not run for months. All that's been left in my head is red mist and buzzing noises that stop me from sleeping. I can barely see where I'm headed in my own head. I look for songs that might help me feel anything profound, anything new, anything familiar, ANYTHING except this red mist and this incessant buzz ruining my mood and my brain, and my trains. 
My fingers hover over the keyboard again, and again. This happens for days, months, even, and I still can't write a single lucid thought to get anything started. I fumble and stumble with "the"s and "a"s and "Once upon a time"s to the point where seeing a blank page on the computer makes me want to bawl my eyes out in mourning like I've lost the greatest love of my life, because I have. 

I lived for writing about heartbreaks and dark places in my mind. I became so used to loneliness that it became my salvation. I became so accustomed to being under the haze of depression and anger that it feels strange to not be surrounded by it anymore. I let fear permeate every single nook and cranny of my psyche that courage now seems more like a stranger than an old friend.
The words escape me. I want to write about everything, the way I feel, the sunshine this time, not the rain. I want to write about love and loving myself, and loving someone else, and someone loving me. I want to write about happiness and finally seeing the light at the end of this horrid tunnel that I've been traversing. But I don't know how. I don't have the words for this.
I never made a train of thought for happiness, it always seemed like a feeble dream conjured up by a supercalifragilistic mind. It makes my skin crawl, thinking of happiness, even if I already am surrounded by it. I programmed and reprogrammed my mind to never hang on to it. Happiness was always a harbinger of bad things. I think I'm just scared, still scared, that if I write anything specific down, if I hang on to things too much, that the world will come swooping in again to take it all away like the eternal villain it is.
I finally have roses in my garden and here I am afraid that they'll die.
But I'm not making any more sense. The red haze is there, holding me back or egging me on, I do not know anymore. I'm going around in circles in my own head and I can't even string a proper paragraph together without being vague.
My fingers hover over the keyboard again. I close the program window, get the strikingly white sheet out of my face, shut down the computer and turn on the TV. The buzzing doesn't die down.

Touch Stone

I think of you every now and then, when I'm reminded of you.

Sometimes when it rains I remember sharing an umbrella with you,

Running to the college from wherever it is we sat talking,

Almost late to class because we lost track of the time.

Sometimes someone says something that is so quintessentially you,

And I have to hold in my smile.

I think about you when I read my books,

Maybe that's why I don't read so much anymore.

I think about you when I write in my diary,

Because I have two diaries filled with your name.

That's why I don't write as much anymore.

I'm happy now, though.

I don't know if you'd believe me,

I don't know if you ever believed in happiness.

I never believed in it when I was around you,

All I felt was the need to impress you, to be your friend,

To be SOMEONE to you. I failed though.

But I still think about you sometimes.

I wonder if you see me online, see my photos,

What do you think, how do you feel;

And then I'll realize, all of a sudden,

You don't really care, you never did.

That's the sad part though.

I made you a touch stone in my life once,

A marker, a monument.

And I was nothing but a bystander to you,

Inconsequential, forgettable.

I was barely a word in your story,

And you were an entire book in mine.

My Life, Part 9: He never loved me back.

That was you.

It will always be you, my first love, my first heartbreak,

My white pickett fence.

Cloudy Friends

I had a friend who told me he wanted to be a cloud. I never understood why. I was younger then, more alive, more naïve, less...scarred and angry.
Anyway, I get it now.
What a wonderful life, to not have to fight for what you want, to have no plans, to just drift. Let the wind take you where it wants, let the rains come, and the sun shine, and you'll still be there, floating.
Here I am, tired from fighting wars that aren't mine, feeling that death is more of a blessing than a tragedy, again; waiting for the darkness to envelope me in its embrace like a mother would. I can cry in the dark, no one will judge me.
I am tired.
I want to be a cloud, too.

My Old Heartbreak

Hello, my old heartbreak. The one who made me feel like the most important thing at fifteen, the one who said he'd love me at sixteen, and broke my heart when i turned seventeen. The one who told me to "wait, I'll get you my jacket" when i was cold, but never did. The one who understood my need to write and draw and talk so much, so fast. The one who always came back but never stayed. The one whose presence i never looked for again, but always welcomed. The one who always made me the almost girl.
Hello, old friend. I don't miss you, not anymore. I also don't want you to come back to me, never again. I see you're finally writing another chapter of your life, it only took you eight years. But still, I'm proud of you. Congratulations. I mean it.

To Those Who Sold Me Short

This is a letter to that girl in 1st Grade, who told me I would never amount to anything, because I was getting better grades than her.

This is for those girls in 2nd Grade, who bullied me to the point of not wanting to go to school anymore, because I spoke better English than all of them combined.

This is for those girls in 4th and 5th Grade, who made me lose my confidence, who alienated me, who made me have no friends, because someone I trusted egged them on, because she was threatened that I would grab her ever-so-smart crown.

This is for that one girl in high school who said my curls looked like pubic hair, the girl who always shouted EWWWW at me in the hallways, the girl who made me cry. This is for her friends, too; the ones who would gang up on me and make me want to kill myself because, damn, I felt THAT small.

This is for that girl who told me I was too dark-skinned to be pretty, because "OMG, why are you so dark, did you go to the beach?"

NO, BITCH. BUT YOU LOOK LIKE YOU DID.

Sorry, lost myself there. Anyway.

This is for all you bullies, all you bitches, all you insecure motherfuckers in my life.

This is for the girl who once told me I was never going to be pretty enough to have a man even consider being in a relationship with me.

This is for everyone who made it hard to love myself.

Because, you know what?

I realised so many things because of your negativity.

I am not pretty, I never was. I am not THAT smart, either.

I am BEAUTIFUL, I am DIVINE, I am BEYOND YOUR EXPECTATIONS, beyond your capacity to comprehend, I am CELESTIAL.

I am ME, and I have discovered, I am all I need to be.

And you all, I realise now, were just passing little specks of dirt that got caught in my eyes and blurred my vision.

Sad Songs

I should not be listening to sad songs, I think, as I play the Twenty-One Pilots' cover of My Chemical Romance's "Cancer" on loop.

Turn away, if you could get me a drink of water, cause my lips are chapped and faded.

I should turn this off before the lyrics start getting under my skin. I stare blankly at my computer screen, quietly contemplating whether slitting my wrists would mean I could get a few months off work, maybe the finance department will finally process my commission.



And bury me in all my favorite colors

You're being over dramatic, again. overthinking, again, pull yourself together.  I shake my head and try not rub the eye shadow from my eyes.

I will not kiss you

Stop this song, it's getting to your head. But it's too late. That line has sent me spiraling off the edge into the darkness I've tried beating into a corner for the past three months. Not for the first time, getting hit by a speeding bus seems more like salvation than tragedy.

Now turn away

'Cause I'm awful just to see

You're being selfish again, wake up. But my mind has gone into a coma and it's happy there, dead or dying, I can't tell the difference anymore. There's worse things in the world, damn it. Just because your world is crumbling does not mean the one outside will stop spinning. Get up.

But counting down the days to go

It just ain't living

I fight the tears, tell myself I'm made of marble, again. I am carved from diamond and will not break. Force myself to smile, again, tell myself not to think of blood and death, and...

Lips are chapped and faded 

Stupid sad song, I tell myself. But I know it isn't the song. I just needed an excuse to succumb to the darkness again. Just for today, tomorrow will be different. I'll be better.

I will not kiss you

Demons

There are demons that I have to fight on my own. Most days, they never stop whispering malicious things: like how I will never be good enough for the world because I will never be good enough for my mother; like no matter how hard I try, I will always fail.

They tell me, every day, that I am unlovable, that I am not worth anything, that my darkness is too much, too consuming, to handle.
Most days, I tune them out.
I couldn't do that today.
I can't... I can't do it anymore. I am at the point of my life where I am ready and willing to succumb to the blade of the guillotine that has been set above me since I turned 8. I cannot keep trying and trying and just see the same look of disdain and disappointment in my parents' eyes. I can't keep crying myself to sleep at night. I am too tired to fight.
I can't be vulnerable and strong at the same time. I can't let anyone in without them being scared of whatever monster has taken root within my soul. I cannot shut the demons up, not anymore.
The rain clouds are coming back, and I have no more stories to tell, no more faith, trust, pixie dust. There's no more naivete to spare. It's all just ashes and bones, and cracked skulls and spilled blood... And me, crying on the bathroom floor at two in the morning, trying to swallow the spine-racking sobs so that no one in my family wakes up.