I fell off the face of the earth into a blinding realization. My body turned to ashes. I felt the pull of voices trying to take me back, but it was too late. I was fire. My mind saw a dark world of metal and smoke. The air was heavy, suffocating me. Every back was turned to me, every door closed. The grass was brittle and lifeless. Soon flames were everywhere. I could not escape. The sky turned into a mirror, reflecting my sunken face. Purple and blues filled the color of my skin. All I needed was a paper and pen, but I was not there for I was only ashes and flame.

Maybe friends aren't the ones
Who we spend 200 days with in school

Maybe friends are the ones
Who we still talk to
Despite not seeing each other
For months

And that frightens me

I remember hiding under an old cherry wood dining table. I remember holding my baby sister, shielding her eyes, covering her and trying to tuck her away. Pulling her as close to me as possible, like I might be able to fold her skin into mine so she wouldn’t have to see what was happening around us. I can still hear her crying into my bony 7 year old shoulder and whaling amongst the chaos with the bitty 4 year old voice that she had at the time. I remember the heart stopping feeling of watching my mother get thrown into the wall and watching my brother, 11 years older than myself, hurtle the beautiful antique silver coffee *** that my grandmother left us- into the space near her head where it bludgeoned the wall. I remember barely being taller than the table myself and pulling my sister out when I saw a chance for us to escape the scene and run into another room.  I remember turning around and seeing my older sister, who was 10 at that time, running up and hitting and kicking my brother and getting shoved to the side. I’ve grown accustomed to the headaches I now get at the sight of flashing police lights.

And sometimes, sometimes the lack of tears is what's most frightening.

An impenetrable numbness that surrounds me.
Has molded around my being.
A hard shell that even a chisel cannot chip.

I am a stone. Cold, so cold.

When did I lose my heart?
When did I lose the ability to care and trust and feel?

Oh, to feel again.
The salty wet tears on hot rosy cheeks.
The rush of crisp fresh air filling my lungs, lifting me, enticing my smooth bare feet to take courageous steps on soft beds of grassy fields.

Where did that girl go? Carefree and whimsical. The girl who welcomed emotional instability. The ups and downs and all arounds are gone.

She has gone and I am here.
I am what's left.
I am the surviving soul.

My black, wretched soul.

Crater filled with endless dust
Full of nothing, full of rust,
Never ending, but it must,
Deeper down and down.

Leaving grass too far behind,
Somewhere no one else can find,
The ones who crave loneliness pine,
for the remoteness of this place.

Why is it always dark?
Not a sun to set or the quickest spark?
Only lonely--a treeless park,
A grave for distant sunlight.

Making happy seem not right.
Celebrate a starless night.
In cherished darkness, the cold can bite,
in the depths of this caldera.

Maybe something happened there,
A distant fight, an unknown lair,
incomplete and crumbled--the pair.
And waiting for some sun.

But for now let's ignore this awful place,
And forget we ever saw a trace.
An unsolved mystery, a closed case.
We'll erase the crater who lies.

It's not just the nightmares that haunt.

When you can't separate

dream
from
reality,

that's when it gets frightening.