The Only Reason.

Blackbird

Saturday morning.
It's been a week since I met Anthony.

I yawn and get up from my bed.

I look at my clock and, oh my god! It's 2:00 p.m. !

What?! Why am I up so late? Oh yes. I remember. I saw Anthony yesterday and it was amazing.

I open my closet to find just some T-shirts and one pair of jeans. I take them and I take one of the T-shirts, it says "Deal with it!", I think I got it off of some weird bazar or something. I don't quite remember. I put my jeans and T-shirt on, and I grab a pair of socks that don't belong to each other. I put a pair of converse and I look at myself in the mirror. Holy crap. I just tie my hair into a bun and and head out.

I open my room door and I walk to the living room. Where my mother is.

"Good-morning mom" I say. She is watching TV.

She looks at me and says "whatever, your breakfast is on the table" and looks back to the TV.

I look at her and say "Why are you mad now? What have I done?"

She looks back at me and says "Oh, nothing, you're just so lazy" with a little bit of sarcasm.

"Whatever mom" I say and I start eating my breakfast. Cereal again. How awesome.

I keep thinking about last night. Anthony seems a good guy and I'm really excited about hanging out with him again. I just don't know when that's gonna be. I mean, I don't really think I'll see him everyday, even though that'll be cool.

I finish my cereal and I'm ready to go out.

"Going out mom" I say but the only thing she does is shake her hand in what seems to mean "whatever". And how do I know that? Cause she always says "whatever".

I lock the door behind me and as soon as I get out of that madhouse I head to the flower store in front of the park where Anthony and I met.

I wait for the lights to go green for "forward" so that I can start walking to What A Sunny Day-isy, the flower store. As soon as I enter the store a bell rings on top of my head and I say good morning to Mr. Rod.

"Hiya Rod!" - I've always had come to this flower store since I started living in the apartment I'm living in now, at the age of nine, or "since I was just a seed" as Mr. Rod likes to tell me.
The first time I came was because my toy car got stuck in the carpet at the entrance, one of the wheels just couldn't get rid of the rusty fabric of that ugly carpet that still welcomes my feet with a hard "hello" to the present day.
Because of the stubborn carpet that didn't want to get rid of my red mini-Cadillac I met one of the most important person I'll ever know, Mr. Rod. I knocked at his door seeking for help to get my car out of his ugly carpet but no one attended the door, so I decided to just enter the place. It looks the same goddamn way it did five years ago. Petunias, peonies, sunflowers, and my favorite, roses, all over the place, it was beautiful, a little bit old and a lot of polen, but beautiful. The amount of colors I witnessed at that time amazed me, I had never seen anything like it before cause I was so used, and I still am, to live in a grey world, that every time I enter this place, it's like a Wonderland to me. But my name is not Alice. And I didn't fall underground.

"Oh hey Violet!" I hear a voice in the background and then, a white head shows up behind a painting of a gardenia.

He smiles a soon as he sees me, as he usually does. I smile back at him.

"How is my girl doing?" he asks rubbing my back. I sigh.

"It's been better"Mr. Rod's expression changes to concern, so I sigh once again and I tell him.

"You know that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and everything's just so quiet and you think to yourself why did you wake up right in this very second, and what's the purpose, why destiny chose to wake you up right now, like, why you, why can't you keep having a sweet time in your dreams? Why did everything had to get ruined and smashed into darkness? Cause that's where you are. A dark room, and that's exactly how my life feels. A dark room" -Mr. Rod looks at the ground and then he looks back at me. He finally lets his breath out.

"You know, people are so used to having their lives in a perfect balance, that when it suddenly gets out of hand, when it suddenly goes all wrong they don't know what to do, how to react, and the only feeling they know is frustration, and the only thing they see is pity, sadness, a dark room. But once you have lived enough disappointments you'll understand and you'll see that not everything is that bad. You may feel miserable, you may see nothing but darkness, but you gotta see it's not darkness, you gotta see it's just a black canvas instead of a white one, you gotta see your canvas is special and unique from the others, and you gotta learn how to paint it with bright colors, cause you may have heard this more than once but, can the stars shine without a dark night? Don't lose hope, kiddo" He smiles at me.

"Thank you, Mr. Rod, you're right. You always know what to say." I say to him. "But, I didn't even tell you my problem"

Mr. Rod half-smiles. "And you don't have to. Trust me, I've lived a lot of disappointments, and I know what I'm saying."

Suddenly, the entrance bell rings, we turn around and see a little girl with her mother. "Well, I guess this is my queue, Mr. Rod. Have a nice weekend" I say. He just smiles and starts talking to the customers.

The bell rings again above my head, but this time it means I'm leaving.
I get out of the store and wait again for the street lights to turn green for people to cross to the park.
When I make it to the park I sit in one of the benches and I start thinking about what Mr. Rod said to me. I have to learn how to paint my black canvas.

I look up to the sky. It's getting cloudy, it'll probably rain in a while, so maybe the best thing is to head back home.

I stand up from the bench and start walking home and when I'm about to cross the street to make it to my building my foot stands on something.
I look down and move my foot. There's something in there. I duck to see it better.
Is that a necklace? It is a necklace. It has a little blackbird on it.
I pick it up and stand back up. I turn around in different directions to see if someone dropped it, but the park has never been so lonely.
I put it in the right pocket of my jeans and head to my house.

"Hi mom" I say. "What are we gonna eat?" She looks at me and says "tuna. An do not complain". I roll my eyes and head to my room where I close the door and sit in the corner of my bed.

"I know where I can keep this" I say pulling the necklace out.
Suddenly my sight concentrates on the scratch in the mirror and I decide to open it. I put it inside and close the door again where nobody will ever see it.