U L T R A V I O L E T

XIII

Okay, now that we have gotten our food, I will continue. Much more hastily now, because the rest of my life has either been dismal or overjoyed. I moved to ultraviolet around five years ago, just before my eighteenth birthday. I said no goodbye, but it wasn't because I possess a cold heart. It was just because I knew all too well that everyone was better off without me, so I just saved them from having to lie to me again. I ran all the way here, never stopping, except to eat and sleep. I ran on pure adrenaline and the hope of better life, hopefully better than the one that I had spent seventeen years enslaved in. My pale lilac skin used to be a pale, milky white. My short violet hair used to be long brown. My aqua eyes, the color of the ocean where my best memories lie in the waves of scattered emotions, used to be a milky, chocolate brown. I used to hate myself, not purely on my physical attributions, but based on the sole state of my mental capacity. Every other statement that came out of my mouth was "I wish I was dead." I was ate alive by anxiety and what other people thought of me. Now, I am numb to those attributions. Enough chardonnay and cigarettes do that to people. I would consider myself improved now. That's why I came here, after all. To escape the things that I was killing myself over. I came here ravaged and I have slowly, but surely, sewn myself back together. During this hard, painstaking process, I found myself and I learned that I don't have to base my worth off of other people's impressions of me. I'm still not done, but believe me, I am much better than I once was. Sharp things are now used as connivences , and not death consultations. Rather, I have exerted my pain into words and released my bubbling emotions in a way that I can go back and remind myself to keep straining forward. You never formally told me of the reason as to why you came, but if it is anything like mine, I just want to tell you that this is a place where people find solitude in their own messed up minds. I hope it does that for you too.