With her birthday money
she bought a new book and began reading it.
The book was about a girl who disappeared when she was 12. The book disturbed her. She kept on reading, and it turned into a nightmare.
She had to wake up from it. She didn't want to live in it. She was sitting in her bedroom, her eyes fixed on the book. The pages were stained brown with a mixture of cigarette smoke and tears. The cover bled through like tissue, and the edges were worn to white. As she continued reading, images swam through her mind like photographs in a nauseating slideshow.
And none of it was lovely.
One morning, years later, when she awoke, the book was lying on her nightstand. She could see from her window to the neighbors' bedrooms and saw the sky was perpetually gray and that the clouds hung heavy and low over all of them. Her parents were both drinking coffee and smoking in the kitchen, pretending not to hear her.
She walked over to the nightstand and picked up the book. She fell back on the bed when she saw her name inscribed on the cover. Her body melted into the sheets, and she looked at the phone and realized it would take her forever to call them.
Then she turned back to the book and noticed that it had become a diary, keeping track of her childhood.
She didn't read very far before screaming.
YOU ARE READING
End of Rush Anthology
PoetryHave you ever felt so distracted by work that you had no time to enjoy your life? You've found that every day is a blur of deadlines and stress. Every evening you come home exhausted and ready to collapse, but still have to suffer through more work...
