For All Life Has to Offer

Sanctuary

White, twinkling lights shone through the knitted and frayed blanket canopy above the ragged sleeping bag. she spent countless nights staring up into the city life lights through the holes in her shelter and sighing at the memories and dreams that could have been.

A sanctuary she had created in the back alley of some nearly forgotten part of town had kept her well hidden and protected from the wolves in sheep's clothing outside. The walls of old wood pallets and quickly aging cardboard held up the tarps and layers of ragged blankets she had used to create a home within the world she'd grown up so very afraid of.

Days of retreating to her sanctuary and nights of sleeping but not really soundly for fear of her sanctuary being invaded.

She'd had her moments; the stray cat that had shared her home for a few months had grown to be a tolerable component of her home, the friends she'd briefly had and ventured to invite inside until they and the cat had stopped coming around. The drunken men and women who occasionally stumbled into her bed and she had even allowed them to stay so long as their intentions had only been to sleep.

One such woman she had even loved, in a confused and longing sort of way. The brown hair and smeared makeup had reminded her of someone she'd once cared for in her past, so long ago that she only remembered the randomness and most unique of details.

She'd lied next to that drunken, sleeping woman and watched as rise and fall of her trusting unconscious lolled through the night. She'd even ventured to reach out and brush the hair from the woman's face, something she had longed for the woman to return but never did. By morning she'd sauntered off with a hangover and a dazed thank-you.

The memories she had made in her sanctuary had carried for months and she'd been thankful of every moment, even the not so nice one. With winter approaching and years of being on her own, she'd been so pleased to finally have a space to defend, one that was her own.

The white lights of the city twinkled through the night in the staring eyes of the girl as the snow of dead winter fell down all around.

That morning the police had found her, buried in her sanctuary and a barricade of snow. Her eyes capturing everything in their staring state and nothing of life left at all.