Only Words Bleed

What Lies Inside The Pages

A/N: I was really moved by a story lately and I just felt like I had to write about it. I was listening to Ed Sheeran's Photograph while reading and it turned into a real bittersweet moment. I don't know how and I don't know why but sometimes I just connect with things on a different level and this is what my feelings turned into. :) / :(

You guys let me know if you think I should continue this. :)

Violet's Pov:

Those daily struggles I go through seem to out weight the small moments of joy I have. Spending time with Louis and Sophie and the rest of the gang have helped, but it's still just another thing to get my hopes up. Then when I wasn't with my friends it only left me with one other thing to do...

When I feel sad, I walk.

When I feel depressed, I walk.

When I feel tired, I wouldn't sleep.

Instead, I'd stay up and write for hours about anything. How I felt, what had happened that day, or my own imaginative story. Or sometimes I'd walk, even when the sun had long since made its disappearance past the horizon. Giving way for the moon to bask the sidewalk with its calming light, just like now. When the sky was clear and free of clouds and I could look up at the stars and get lost in the sparkling dots as I created my own images, finding a story I could tell along with them.

Sometimes it felt like walking was my second life, in a sense. That and writing. The two kind of went hand in hand. Being out here right now let me clear my mind of everything back home, opening up my thoughts to anything and everything. Letting me think of different feelings and emotions that I could suppress into words the moment my pencil hit the paper. I spend at least half my day walking alongside the dirt roads and crumbling sidewalks, and as of lately I'd spend most nights out here too.

I live my life one day at a time, but it mostly felt like a broken record. Most days were uneventful, which I guess I should be thankful for in a sense. The silence could get to be a bit much at times, but the days when it was broken were always worse. If I was lucky I could avoid any confrontation, but then there were the days when dad liked to get in an outburst or two. Sometimes ending with a few bruises, or possibly a black eye, even a scar once. He's even broke my glasses a handful of times.

I learned early on that it was never a good idea to fight back, it only made things worse. Staying silent wasn't always the best option either, but it was better than the repercussions I'd receive for talking back. I found myself talking less and less lately, barely uttering a single word in a day. Just the soundless words that made their way onto the lined paper of my journal. My friends didn't mind, I was already pretty quiet in general and they understood what went on at home even if I never conveyed the specifics. Plus Louis did enough talking to cover both of us.

Living in a dying trailer park wasn't very fun or interesting. At least it didn't feel like it anymore. My grandparents used to be able to get me to see the best in things, the color that surrounds us in everyday things, the life that was present, the feeling that was there. Everything was more lively with them around. Everything was better before they left. Now with them gone, it felt like all the joy was taken out of my world. Like someone had leeched all the color from the rainbow that hung over my head. Now everything just looked dark and cold as the hues blurred together into a depressing mixture of grays. The field by my house once a vibrant green in the light of the sun, now a dull yellow as the dead grass swayed in the wind.

I guess that's why I liked to write. It gave life to the wonders of the world, to emotions I couldn't express to other people. I could preserve those happy moments in the pages of my journal and go back and visit them whenever I wanted. A chance to escape the bitterness of my reality. Though even happy stories have to come to an end. Kind of like a photograph I guess. Taking a picture of a moment you loved and preserving it between pages of clear plastic. Then when you'd look back, it was like you never left because that image is trapt forever with ink as it bleeds into photo paper.

My bedroom wall was covered in photos that my friends and I have taken. I'd look up at the wall of familiar faces and sometimes I'd write about the things we did, but make the stories a bit more exciting. Like the time we lost Louis's pet turtle, Geoff, turned into how me and Aasim accidentally barbequed him alive with a crazy experiment gone wrong. Or the time we went to the mall and watched Sophie try on different outfits. I'd always laugh at that one because I turned it into Sophie dressing up to go undercover as she sat at some dinner trying to eavesdrop on someone's conversation to find out crucial information from this kid who laid witness to some tragic accident.

They were great memories, ones I cherished because they had brought happiness in my life. But... I haven't had a picture make the wall in over a year. Nothing eventful has really happened lately. Well...I should say nothing happy has occurred lately.

Today, as usual, I had walked to school. It was the same shit, just a different day. Seeing the same people walk in and out of classrooms, pretending to be paying attention to whatever lesson was being taught today but really just being board out of their minds. After school hadn't been so bad. I went home with Louis and we hung out for a while, doing whatever dumb shit we always do. It wasn't till I got home later that evening that all hell broke loose.

My dad in another one of his drunken fits, yelling at me, blaming me for something I didn't do. I tried to ignore him and the string of curse words that followed, but it only made him madder which led to the nice bruise that now accompanied my left arm.

Afterward, I locked myself in my bedroom. I tried writing out my feelings. Anything I could transfer into graphite lettering to let my emotions out without causing a bigger fight. A little past eleven I struggled with coming up with more words, my mind a bit burned out now that the anger had left my body. But I wasn't tired. I knew it was going to be another one of those nights. I couldn't sleep, couldn't write. So there was only one thing left to do. With that, I grabbed my red hoddie from off my doorknob and slipped out my bedroom window.

An hour later landed me here. Just walking along the side of the road, following the brittle cracks in the sidewalk. My brain liking the mystery of where they'd take me, not really caring where I'd end up. Anywhere was better than home. If I imagined hard enough, I could pretend they were lines in a map that would lead me to some far off land, just waiting for me to explore. A place I could get away from the shackles of depression that had long ago imprisoned me.

I stopped once I cam to another field. Without any more trees or houses in the way, it lay open for me to gaze up at the sky above. Watching the stars shine in all their beauty against endless midnight darkness. It was almost enough to tare my thoughts from what was truly my reality. I could get lost in those images for hours, coming up with whatever I wanted. It was my vast world of connect-the-dots, where I came up with what image I wanted to see in the end.

Taking a glance at my phone I saw the time, almost one-thirty in the morning. I sighed wishing I could stay longer and enjoy the calm, serene, feeling of being left in the silence of the stars, but I figured I should head back and try and get what little sleep I could. Even if I wouldn't be granted the escape of sleep and I just laid there in the darkness I could still watch the stars from my window. Maybe I'd finally see a shooting star and I could wish for something to make my life just a little bit better.