Hell Above

She was standing on a bridge. Looking out she wanted to jump, she wanted to take her life. ‘Cause what would it matter? She’s just one person, a person no one cares about. She looked down. Old abandoned train tracks lie below. It could be days before they would find her. Who would look? Sola thought. Would they ever find her? She sits there contemplating, thinking over everything that has happened. This wasn’t just a weeks’ worth of shit. This was a lifetime full.

Why can’t I be what you want? I try so hard to be what you want… She was thinking about her parents. They never appreciated her. It’s a shame they didn’t because she does well in school, she doesn’t talk back, and she respects her parents, or at least tries to. It’s hard to do when they are what’s wrong with the world. She rubs her cigar-burned and bruised arms; shaking. Tears run down her face as a cool breeze hits her and gives her goose bumps. Why am I still thinking about this? Why haven’t I jumped? There is no reason for me to stay; nothing, no one. I’m alone just like I’ve always been. Car tires splash through the water on the road from the recent storm, the cars passing her by on the bridge, but no one seems to see her. What do they think about a girl standing on the ledge of a bridge? What else could I possibly be trying to do except kill myself? Practicing for gymnastics in the Olympics? She couldn’t help but laugh at that thought - kind of a dark humor joke. She sits down on the ledge thinking more.

Her living situation was so unstable that her parents never even noticed her being gone. If she wasn’t there, they probably thought they had just kicked her out again. It happened so often that she could leave for weeks without being noticed. She’d walk the streets all night thinking, standing on this very same bridge. This wasn’t the first time she had gotten up on that old concrete ledge, but it could be the last. It was amazing that she was doing so well in school. She didn’t have a home life. You couldn’t call what she had a ‘home situation.’ Her school life was almost a relief, even though she got taunted every day for no reason. It was probably because of the bruises and burns on her arms. In this society it’s considered ugly. As if she had a choice to not have them. On the contrary, Sola was anything but ugly. Her long straight dark hair that came down to the middle of her back and her big green eyes that had speckles of blue in the middle around the pupil, the mixture of dark hair and light eyes, was stunning. She was around 5’6. If she didn’t have the scars and bruises she had, she could’ve been a model.

“What’s wrong with her arms?” Cindy, one of the most popular girls at school, would say to her friend not trying to lower her volume at all so that Sola could overhear.

“Daddy’s probably a drunk that can’t control himself.” Her friend would reply.

“I don’t blame him. She probably deserved them.” She’d say back. This bothered her. How could anyone deserve what she had? No one deserves to be treated like her. She never tried to defend herself. She didn’t like admitting her home life was awful. They wouldn’t care. They’d just find it as yet another excuse to bully her some more. Another thing to talk about, that’s all they care about. Their friendships don’t last and there’s a reason. Friendships between girls never last because all they can talk about is other people, and then when the other one is not around they talk about them too. Eventually they end up finding out what the other said and they get angry and never speak again. But they do speak of each other quite often among their new group of friends. That’s how all friendships are nowadays, gossip circles. All you have to do to be friends with a girl is hear who they are talking about and add in a negative comment about them too. Insta-friends. That’s why Sola didn’t have any friends. Or at least that’s what she liked to think. Really, no one in this society would be caught dead with a girl that displayed the kind of scars she had gotten at home. No one cared about how she felt, what she was going through. All they cared about was their own social life. Not even teachers would ask her what the scars were from. They’d look, she would see them stare, but they never said anything to her.

She skipped school a lot. She thought they probably stopped leaving messages at home because her parents never sent in notes or answered the phone. They didn’t care if she wasn’t going to school. Yet, with all this, she still did well in school. She was always on the honor roll and her teachers always looked surprised when grading her tests and quizzes. Thinking she was cheating they’d watch over her and sometimes move her into a corner near people that got bad grades on every test. She still did well and they remained confused. She was brilliant. One could only imagine what she could go on to do if she was in a comfortable and stable living situation. She would have had time to study and work. She could have been number one in her class. She could have gone on to be a writer or inventor. She could be an asset to the world, but it would now go unnoticed because she could jump and all that natural ability and talent she had would be gone from the world in an instant when she hit the ground. Her energy would just explode, going into space, going somewhere else.

It’s the middle of July but she’s still freezing. It doesn’t help having the cold tears all over her face. She sometimes wondered what it could be like to have someone that cared for her, a friend, a parent, or maybe a boyfriend that loved her, one who didn’t care about her scars and only thought they made her even more beautiful. That’d be nice… She thought. But who would ever want me with these scars. I’m ugly and there is no more room in society for me. She had brought a diary and pen so that if anyone were to find her they could read her final thoughts. She took this out now and started writing:

Songs to be played at my funeral (if there is one)

By Pierce the Veil

·        A Match into Water

·        Bullet Proof Love

·        King for a Day

·        Bulls in the Bronx

·        Hold on ‘Till May

·        100 Sleepless Nights

·        Southern Constellations + The Boy Who Could Fly

·        Chemical Kids and Mechanical Brides

·        Yeah Boy and Doll Face

·        The Sky Under The Sea

·        Caraphernelia

·        Besitos 

She always hated how at funerals they always played sad songs that didn’t mean a thing to the person who died. She always wanted it to be her choice. She didn’t want Amazing Grace being played. She wanted her favorite bands screaming in the background. She puts the notebook away. Yeah ‘cause I’m gunna have a funeral… Who would come? My parents wouldn’t be able to afford that. They’d probably just torch my body and pretend they never even had a daughter. Her parents didn’t have good jobs. Her dad used to work at a bar but he got fired since he drank on the job all the time. Her mom works two full-time jobs - one at the bank and another at McDonalds doing the graveyard shift. Her dad’s still looking for a job but no one will hire him. I guess I’d be doing my parents a favor. They would no longer have to pay to feed me the rations I get. She barely ate as it was. She was so skinny she could be anorexic. She didn’t think she deserved food. She thought she was ugly and ugly people don’t deserve the things that normal people get. like food, attention, care, and love.