Plant New Seeds | H.S.| AU

Prologue

The simple task of closing my eyes at night turned out to be the most daunting.

No matter how hard I tried to prevent the tainted memories from mixing with the ones that were kept sweetly in the deepest part of mind—I couldn't.

My mother's drug induced screams morphed into the laughs of my Grandma as I skipped through the bed of sunflowers in her garden.

The sound of the Choc Bay waves crashing against the shore shifted into the wailing of sirens of the ambulance; my mother had overdosed again.

The innocent warmth of my grandpa's hands on my shoulders as we watched the fireworks in the Saint Lucia night skies distorts to my sixth foster mother scoldingly pinning me against the wall for spilling water onto her new rug.

And the glorious smell of my Grandma's Ackee & Saltfish with Bakes filling her kitchen modified into the harsh odor of alcohol breath, spilling out of my ex lover's mouth while he slurred through his insecurities and accusations of my infidelity.

My poor brain fought a one-sided war all night long, trying to find reasoning for my dwindling hope, my cracked sense of pride, the faltering of my motivation, my collapsing grasp on reality, and the emptiness that took over my heart.

The unwavering uneasiness I harbored caused me to overanalyze every choice I made; did they all lead up to where I was now? My inability to focus on one problem at a time only caused additional ones. The fear of putting all my trust into one person led to me putting my trust into no one at all. The motives and intentions of the ones I let into my sacred place never exceeded their own personal pleasure.

I wake suddenly, my body shooting up as a loud gasp escaped my mouth. My eyes flung open to the sight of the sunrise pouring into my bedroom. I didn't blink, I couldn't blink. I fixated on the pattern of my comforter, my Grandma's voice coated in her thick West Indian accent replaying in my head.

During one of the summers I spent on the island, she says: "The sunflower dem ah face the sun, but dem a go through the dirt to find their way there."