WRITERS BLOCK

Tell me

They never tell you about the after.
After the funeral.
After the hospital.
After the accident.
They might tell you about years after, maybe, if your lucky. Years and years and years after when she's happy again and married and has kids.
But what about inbetween those times? What about the days, the weeks, the months of emptiness. Of depression. Of blank expressions.
I want to hear about that after.
When she finally walks through the door, throwing her car keys on the counter, making her way to her room. When her parents leave her be, not wanting to intrude, knowing she needs to grieve.
When she closes her bedroom door and stands with her back against it for a few minutes going through what just happened.
The police sirens. Flashes of blue and red. The screaming, her screaming. The blood, his blood. His parents running. The nurses shoving them back, back, back. The doctor coming out saying those dreaded words.
"I'm sorry."
Then what? She drives home? Tell me what happens then.
She slides to the ground, sobbing, weeping, covering her mouth with both hands to try to make it quiet. Hot breath. Hot tears. Hot face. Hot hands. Everything is on fire.
Tell me about the boring weeks, where she's silent. The long days of doing nothing, staring at the walls. Where she barely eats, moves, does anything. Where she sleeps all day. Where she has to take pills to sleep at night but they just wake her up and give her more nightmares.
Tell me about her nightmares. Describe to me her pain. They always say she's sad, but that's obvious, that's to be expected. I want to feel it with her. Tell me how she feels.
How her chest aches at all times, never giving her an easy breath. How everything is heavy. How her mind betrays her, flooding her with memories. Memories of him. Tell me how she clutches her pillow, her teddy bear, her self, each night to muffle her agonizing cries, as an attempt to feel something. When it starts right in the very core of your being. It starts right in the center of her. Tell me how intense it is. How it spreads throughout her body, making its way through her bones and veins and blood. It's thick. Consuming. Choking her. She feels like it's tense, but she can't relax, she can't let go.
Make me feel it.
Her pain.
Her sorrow.
Her misery.
Her nothing.
Because the pain eventually numbs her. She can't feel a thing anymore and that secretly terrifies her. She's falling, ever. so. slowly.

But then she lands with a crash and everything explodes.

She stares at herself in the mirror in her bedroom. She sees her bloodshot eyes. Her messy hair. Her dark circles and stuck out ribs.
He wouldn't recognize her.
And that hurts.
Tell me what she does next, because she has no more tears to cry. There is no more water left to drain from her body. What is running through her mind when she knocks over her nightstand? When she clears off her dresser, causing makeup and perfume and jewelry to go everywhere? What is she thinking as she breaks everything she owns? As she rips the covers and sheets off her bed? When her books soar through the air, pages folding inward, covers torn. When glass shatters and plastic snaps. When she gets too tired to continue and collapsed onto the floor, and she stares again into that now broken mirror that has her blood smeared into it.
Was she thinking why?
Why him?
Why now?
Why why why why why?
What was going on in that head of hers? The one he used to kiss. The one he used to love.
Tell me.
Make me feel it.
I want to know.
Tell me how she picked up a glass shard and imagined the damage that could be done. How she thought of ending it all with a slice, a jump, a kick of the chair.
Now tell me why she didn't. Because there is still the years and years and years after to get too. How did she get there from this exact moment?
What told her to stop?
Him? The boy? The dead boy? Thoughts of him?
Who knows who could drag her out of the pit she's in.
Tell me.
Her feelings, you say? Her stomach? Her gut?
Her God?
The only God.
God has her set down the makeshift weapon and calls her mother to walk in. To see the mess. To see her little girl on the floor in the midst of her own chaos.
He did.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her out. Because He knows her future. He knows she'll come to Him, cling to Him. He knows she'll be okay. She'll be okay.
Tell me that.