September

It's almost been a year...

I'll never forget the last time I saw her, the last words she spoke to me, the undeniable and unwavering pain in her dull grey eyes. Those eyes used to be silver, silver like the fighting wolf. Her wolf is dead now and its blood spills out of her eyes disguised as saline tears. 

Less than a year ago I was a twelve year old girl with a naive and optimistic view of the world and its nature. I'd be thrown into fits of bubbly giggles by just the sight of  a beautiful monarch butterfly that I'd see every March. I loved the lively green of the grass and the breezy lavender of the Delphiniums. I loved to see all the colors. I never realized I was blind to all but the beauty in the world. I was blissfully oblivious and danced through dandelions. All until that one moment.

Our mother refuses to clean out her bedroom. She's still in denial. I can just vaguely remember when mama actually lived. Simply being alive and living are two very different things. Mama used to have an exciting and exuberant personality. She never stopped smiling and it was no mystery where I got my livelihood from.  A mother that somehow managed to spend time to smell the spring flowers with her daughters in between working shifts. But now she is dead, nothing more than a shell of what used to be a beautiful person. Mama refuses to grasp onto reality in a failing attempt to guard what's left of her golden heart.

"She's gone, mama, and she's not coming back! Don't you get it?"  I exclaimed. Not responding she turns on her heels and heads to her bedroom. My words were stab wounds in a heart that had already been shot. 

Thinking back on that memory I realize that my guilt still lingers. I had apologized to mama many times and she had forgiven me, but I can not forgive myself.

I've kept her diary. I'm the only one who knows about it and I refuse to show anyone. I haven't read it yet. I have a younger sister to take care of, and I'm not sure if she or my mother can handle it. I'm not sure if I can handle it.

I lie in my bed with her diary. I grab the top right corner of the rustic brown cover and slowly open up the journal, terrified of what I might find, I began to read.

February 17th, 2013

I refuse to live this way. I hate my thighs, I hate my butt, I hate my face, I hate myself. I know that this isn't what mom would want me to do. I've seen every YouTube video and Public Service Announcement advising against it but what else can I do? I've tried time and time again but I can't resist food forever, I'm too weak, I am a failure.

I have always believed that time travel is inherently impossible because time is not an object, it does not really exist. That is why everything you say and do can never be taken back, except for eating. Eating is the only thing that you can reverse. With this I have justified my decisions when I purge. If I ever doubt that this is the only way, I'll remember these words I've written, those first words, I hate myself. And there is only one way to fix it.

I skimmed through almost fifty more pages, they were all weight updates and hateful notes that she had written to herself. I eventually landed on a page with a bent corner. Her last entry:

September 4th 2013

I hate everyone and everything, especially myself. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have possibly thought that mama wouldn't hear me?  She was sitting RIGHT NEAR THE BATHROOM! What kind of mother is just ready to ship me off to some hospital? I'm so angry! I just want to cry and rip the skin off my fat body! I'm not going away to that hospital. I'm not. I'll kill myself before going.

I read that last line ten thousand times over. Heavy droplets of liquid, weighted with the guilt of never noticing, fell onto the page fading the blue lines on it. 'I'll kill myself...' she wrote. How could I have not known she was suffering? How could I have been such and awful sister? I wish she would have realized that she didn't just kill herself, she killed all of us. She killed mama, who was once had a lively personality, who loved her children deeply and spent any time she could with them could now barely look her two remaining daughters in the eye. She killed our younger sister, she's only ten and already has met the shadow of the devil, named depression. She killed me, I now lie in bed crying over her diary praying for my twelve year old mind to return so that maybe I could believe in time travel once again. 

*Three years later*

Leaving the bathroom and heading to my bedroom I passed her  still untouched room on the way. When I reach my bedroom I close the door behind me. Slowly, with quivering hands I pick up the rustic brown covered notebook and open it up to her last entry. In this moment I finally understand what she had been going through. Turning the page I stare down at it, almost intimidated by its naked state. Grabbing a pen I began to write.

September 12th 2017

I understand, I hate myself too...

. . .

The End