A young girl plays the dangerous metaphorical game of chess-
will she win the raging battle between mind and soul?
Or will the monster teeter her over the edge of sanity?
She must tread carefully, or risk losing the game.
*This is an Ellen Hopkins f...
I reach out - and grab her back, as I lift her out of the rubbish. The stench is overwhelming, and the bin is crawling with cockroaches. But I don't mind, because molds perfectly into my arms.
They don't like the memories because the tears come easily, and so they hold her tighter, almost like they own her. They would live in denial, a shadow in the darkness of sin. Once again, I break my promise to myself for this day.
Its a constant battle
A war between remembering
and forgetting.
I toss and turn for hours. Suddenly shaken awake to get ready for school. Emotions come crashing down on me like a tidal wave. It's only then I realized all of this was just a dream...
I've been abruptly summoned to the front of the classroom at the urgent request of the monster. The monster pretends sympathy, for what, I've no clue, and like she gives half a damn about anything, but clinging, iron fisted, to her job. I think she thinks she's whispering but 27 pairs of eyes home in on me. I straight on laser every one until they drop like dead fly duos. The feigned respect isn't lost on her, and she doesn't bother to lower her voice. I had gone to school, brain almost "trippin" hard, skin buzzed, electrified, body feeling like it was running on high end ice because of lack of sleep.
She looks at me then, eyes cold, assessing my current mental state. She's no shrink, I realize, and as she stares a second too long, I wind up, that extended interior monologue, rehearsed one too many times, I noticed everyone is once again staring at me, waiting for some overt exterior reaction. Have I done something I'm not aware of? Im miraculously pulling off As in every class. She grins and I shudder. Never look the monster in the eyes, I remind myself. Don't flip her off. Don't flip her off. Don't! I flip her off mentally, sharp turn on one heel. Head toward the door. Laser Laser Laser. Pairs of dead flies drop as I pass by. Anger obvious within the death beams of my eyes. What now?
All I want is to be left alone.
All I want is to cruise in radar-free space.
Just....
Disappear....
"Between the gray of consciousness and the obsidian where dreams ebb and flow, there is a wishbone window and trapped in her glass is a silver shard of enlightenment. It is this the mystics search for, the truth of the Holy Grail. It is this the believers pray for. The spark of alpha + omega. But what of those who plunge into slumber, who snap from sleeps embrace? What of those who measure their tomorrows with finite numbers, cross them off their calendars one by one. Some say death is a doorway, believe the key. Others claim you only have to stumble across the threshold to glimpse a hundred billion universes in the blink of a single silver shard."
Have faith. That's what people keep telling me. Faith will get things better. Faith that bad things happen for a reason. Implicit in that ridiculous statement is the hand of some extraterrestrial magician. Some all powerful creator, also an omnipotent destroyer.
Because if he carefully sows each seed of life,...
he is also flint for the relentless sun beating down upon his crops.....
until they eventually wither into dust.
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