The grandfather clock ticks, echos all around the room. In the middle is a white couch with family sitting on and around the couch. This is our family portrait. This is where it began. On the left side is my father's family, and to my right is my mother's. I sit there right down in the middle. My mother's hand softly on my shoulder, while my father has a stern look on his face. I sit on the cold wooden floor messing with my braid. My mother tells me to look up and smile. Snap. The photo is taken. A piece of time, frozen forever in that moment. How I wish I could go back to that innocent time. I look up to smile at my grandmother but she's gone. The family doesn't seem to notice. They walk around the room.
"Mother... what happened to grandma?..."
She looks down at me holding on to the bottom of her dress. She lets out a long sigh.
"It's just a part of life Cayla. I promise it will get better."
She pats my back and walks towards father. There is a red stain on her chest. It's so bright and vibrant against her white dress that its basically blood in a murderer scene. No one seems to notice though. All is white in the room except that blood stain upon her heart. I walk to find my uncle but he is also missing. My grandmas son is gone. Now my dad's mother has the same stain as my mom. Little by little I notice my family disappearing. My mother sits on the couch. She begins to fade as I grab her hand. My screams fill the room.
"Mother don't leave me! I can't lose anyone else!"
She slowly fades back from the white mist around her. Her sweet embrace allows me to breath in her scent. A sent i'm all too familiar with. It's a cheap perfume type of smell. Her warmth is like fresh soft sheets out of the dryer. Then in a second she disappears again. Only now there is no coming back. She is gone for eternity. My own mother, the woman that gave me life was gone. There is a stabbing pain in my chest. It happened so fast. It was a gunshot to my heart. I put my hand over my heart trying to stop the bleeding but I couldn't. I couldn't stop the bleeding for a long time. I stand up one more time holding back every tear I had inside my waterfall of emotions. My father stands there with not a red stain on his shirt, but a stain so white he could of bleached it. Why is he hiding his bloodstain? He walks up to me and just shakes his head in shame. Then leaves the room. He didn't disappear. He just left. Like a flock of scared sheep my family left. They left like I was the wolf. I was the problem. Sooner or later I realized I was the only one in the room any more. Just me and the room. The long intervals of solitude made me temporarily insane.
I started tearing down the wall paper. Kicking the walls and ripping out the stuffing in the couch. A piece of the broken couch leg was on the ground. I picked it up carefully and ran at that ungodly sound the ticking clock was making! Pieces of the clock scarred the room. Thousand diamonds fly threw the room and land everywhere. All around me is broken dreams, family torn apart, and this room drenched in blood. I'm wearing a gown made of blood and heals wilted together by loneliness and sorrow. I stand there looking at the hurricane that had swept through this room. A soft sigh excesses my cold cracked lips.
"I'm sorry mother... I don't understand. Why am I so alone? Was I not good enough of a daughter?"
My knees give out as I fall onto the sharp pieces of diamonds. All I can think about is how much I hate this room. How much I want to leave this room. That is when I decided. I'm leaving this place that has caused me so much hurt and pain.
I pick myself off the ruined grounds. The glass and wood stuck in my knees almost leaves me paralyzed. Each step I takes feels like i'm rubbing my feet against scalding hot sand paper. I keep persevering because no matter what I know any place but here is better.
I reach a door I've never seen before. It's an old wooden brown door with a rusted gold handle that curls. Before I even fully touch the door it cracks open, like it was waiting for me. A warm breeze rushes in and I can feel my cheeks flush. The fresh air was so strong, without thinking my feet ran through that door and into something beautiful. There was vibrant color all around me. The sun enlightened my perspective. A smile comes across my healthy pink lips. There is a sound coming from behind me. Hesitantly I look. There I see the people who care for me. This group may be smaller then my family but they are all I need to be happy. They all pull me into their embrace. An embrace I haven't felt in so long. I know where I belong now. I belong with the people who truly care for me.
It was in my darkest moments when I understood that sometimes the light can be found in the most unlikely places. In that moment I realized. The phoenix and I are similar. We both died in our ashes but were reborn from them as well. I will never forget the ones who choose to light my way home because of them I'm eternally grateful.
Snap. A new portrait has been taken.
