Being Shot

P h o t o #63 - Ashes To Ashes

P h o t o #63 - Ashes To Ashes

~Four Years Ago~

We couldn't bring ourselves to have an open casket. The service was short, quick, and botched since we weren't expecting a death in the family. Most who showed up were one's without ties to us, only able to offer groundless words of pity, as we lived far from our relatives.

I wished I could've made myself believe it was a beautiful funeral. I wished I was young enough to be told to do so and blindly follow.

Food didn't taste the same after she left us. Often times the lingering taste of stomach acid filled my mouth since I wasn't able to keep things down. No matter how many times I chewed I couldn't bring the flavor out, couldn't get the texture I thought - I could've sworn I knew - to surface. One of my favorite pass times was to eat the blueberry or chocolate muffins after school while talking about our day; us being twins often meant we were separated when it came to classes.

My mother stopped baking muffins. I stopped eating altogether.

I pinched at the sagging skin upon my upper arm, remembering the toned muscle that used to lay beneath from my prior active lifestyle. I blinked slowly, letting my arms sink back to my side, bringing my knees in closer to my chest. My ankles twitched, their tremor seemingly ingrated into my life.

It had barely been two weeks since my sister died.

School had started up again three days ago, but I couldn't bring myself to go. I had seen many of my classmates faces at the funeral, and I knew then that that was the last time I would ever wish to again. I was more than certain that among them were the ones who had worn my sister to her breaking point, had put thoughts into her head that never belonged. The mere idea had me seeing red the entire night, my head jerking left and right, ready to strangle anyone daring enough to smile at the result of their deeds. Bile rose in my throat when my friends approached me at the service, and I fought off a stiffling nausea when I watched them pass, uncomfortable from being blatantly ignored, tiptoeing around the shards of broken glass that was myself. What I was reduced to.

I barely shivered in the cold, the bottom of my skirt against the concrete step leading off our patio into our quaint backyard. My body stunk like nothing else, smelling of sweat and vomit, still garbed in the clothes I'd worn to the funeral. A few sizeable holes grappled for attention along my black tights, revealing pale skin that prickled at the weather. Tears and snot stained the sleaves of my blouse, no longer fresh as I could not force any moisture from my eyes at this point. I refused to go in the house unless absolutely necessary, as breathing was far too difficult in it. At night I slept in bouts of minute long intervals against the hard wood beneath the sliding door, ready to bolt outside as soon as dawn broke over the horizon.

I couldn't go in my room either, neither to change nor to brush out my grease filled hair. My mom seemed to feel the same; I hadn't seen much of her in the past two weeks either.

My finger ran over the lens of my glasses, cool as they sat in my lap, my blurred vision scanning the muted sky. For as long as they were a necessity I tried with all my might not to wear them, favoring not being able to see over looking foolish in a pair of specs that didn't fit my face quite right.

My fist clenched around them. Perhaps that was the reason I couldn't see my sister's suffering. Maybe the fact that most of my memories consist of slightly muddled images due to my stubbornness was the reason I was having a hard time remembering what her smile looked like.

Or maybe I was just a bad person in general. Even when blind you're supposed to know how someone you care about is feeling. I couldn't even manage that much.