Teardrops

Chapter 12: Cages

Chapter 12

(Lexi's POV continued)

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Suddenly, I remembered.

Shelly. Cancer. Wheelchair. Tears.

I pushed the smell of chlorine out of my head.

"Lexi??"

She needs me.

The words came as a shock, a revelation.

A lifesaver.

"It's okay Shelly."

"What happened?? What's wrong??"

Keep it together. Stay strong.

"I'll tell you later!" I hissed at her under my breath, praying nobody was listening.

"You scared me." she whispered back as we started to move again.

~Time passes~

In the hospital's extensive courtyard, there were trees, and gardens, and flowers, all carefully contained and well-kept. I loved all of the beauty.

But when I looked down at Shelly, she was looking around with an expression if disgust.

"What? Are you okay? Are you in pain? What's wrong?"

The words rushed out of me.

"Nothing." Her voice stilled the rising sense of panic in my chest.

"It's just-" she added, seeming hesitant.

"Tell me."

"It's just everything seems so trapped!!!" She blurted, looking around, and I did the same, and it was as if everything had changed.

The small, white picket fences around the flower beds and the long tall, black wrought iron circles around the trees. I saw it as she did, cages.

The cement retaining walls around the resident's garden.

Da- ...dang that girl's got a pretty twisted view of the world.

Lyssa I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands. And then I'm going to stab you with a knife until no one will recognize your body. And then I'm going to resurrect you so I can do it all over again.

Sounds like fun. You're getting violent. Have you been taking your medicine??

At that point, my feelings became too strong and baffling to express so I inwardly fumed.

Love you, too.

"I hate it out here almost as much as I hate it inside."

"Almost?"

"Inside is my prison. This is just seeing theirs. It reminds me of my mom."

I'm going to effing kill that woman. Does effing count as a cuss word? I was going to say- nvm.

I'm with you, and no I don't think so.

"How so?" I hate giving her these small responses, but my mind was preoccupied with absorbing everything.

"I feel like she trapped me so I would turn into what she wanted me to be. Like the flowers, look how they're planted in little pretty patterns. So- so contained. And the trees! Look at them!! Didn't anybody tell them that trees are supposed to be bent and gnarly and scarred and wise and comforting, because you know that they've been making it through all of life's crappy weather just like you. And that's beautiful. Not this. Not this thin, flimsy tree surrounded by a gilted cage of steel. It's just so fake. I knew someone like that once. She was always fishing for compliments by pretending to have low self-esteem when in reality she thought she was a perfect little goddess. She loved it when we complimented her. Her hair, her body glitter, her shoes, fancy scarves. I secretly hated her, even though she acted nice. I hated that other people I cared about seemed to be taken in by her foolish acting."

She swallowed hard, "Why do people fall so easily for fake beauty? Don't people know that the stem is just as important as the flower? The roots, too? But no. The roots are too dirty, the stem too plain. We only want to the beauty that's shoved in our faces."

I stared at her. Surely this wasn't coming from the mouth of a teenage girl? Did we switch her with a wise old grandma, well-versed in the faults and idiocies of the world?

"Sheldon said he was the stem to my white rose. I don't want to be the beauty shoved in people's faces." Shelly continued, rather unexpectedly.

"You're the flower hidden behind all the thorns," I told her, "where nobody else thinks to look."

Shelly paused to think about it.

"That makes sense," she finally conceded, "Can I have pencil and paper? I need to write."

"Of course," I reached into my purse and pulled out my small notebook I used for grocery lists and a green mechanical pencil.

I sat in silence, staring at the familiar courtyard with new eyes.

Finally, I looked over her shoulder.

CAGES

Do you see the cages all around us?

Do you see the captivity

With your very own eye?

Is everything

Put down to relativity

Or are there rules to live by?

Can you feel the iron digging into your thigh

The platinum on your ankles, and on your wrists

Do you long more for the sky

Or the bliss... Of the end?

Do you see the cages all around you?

Can you see the faces

Of the ones who died alone

And without the hope

Of ever finishing the race

Do you hear the voices

Screaming from inside?

"Do it!!"

"Don't"

When will my heart be still?

Do you see the words,

Telling you "you can't!"

But do you see the birds

Listening to the bats

I don't see them listening or reading anything at all.

Yet they can fly,

Can you or I?

Is it better to be rational,

And know the things that are

And are not real...

Or is it better to not be fact'ional'

And claim that fake ones are

And begin to feel?

"It's not my best." Shelly's voice startled me.

"But writing helps me clarify things."

I nodded slowly at her, still thinking about the poem.

"I feel like I barely know anything about your past, Lexi. Tell me?"

"Umm. Okay. Can we go inside first? It's getting cold..."

She stared at the building in disgust before nodding reluctantly.

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Hi guys!! Wazzup? okay I know I haven't really done Shelly's pov since cancer announcement but thanks for trying to understand. ;)

Vote, comment, save me from undiscovered author depression:D thanks guys

Love you!!!!