The Opening from the Book of Spells

       I opened the book of light and fell in. He carried my cold body to the bed as I lye completely still. My eyes are open, but I am dead. 

My heart is eternally grateful for the pushing he gives that beats a pulse into my stopped heart. The blood rushes back through my numb cold fingers. Blood rushes up to my head and my brain begins to think, once again. I am suddenly gifted with breath of my own. I am gifted with knowledge of my own. I am gifted with thoughts of my own. I pull myself into his warm hard chest, for a hug because at the moment, that is the only form of gratitude I am able to give. I want to open my mouth, whisper inside of his ear that I love him and want to thank him for saving me. 

I want to tell him; I want to show him. I want to be held with his hand holding my head while I cry tears from the heartbreak of being dead, the heartbreak of speaking languages that do not make sense. I want to cry tears for the simple fact that the travel scared the life out of me. 

But I do not cry. I do not speak. I do not whisper that I love him, because the truth is, I am still trying to catch my breath. I am still recovering from the aches and the words that crawled out of my throat. I am still recovering from the life amongst the unseen. Even though, I do not speak or show love, I hope it is still heard. I hope that he can still see love beyond my incapabilities. I have been harmed, and I do not have time to want anything. My arm finally connects with my brain. I may not be able to tell him that I love him, but tell my story, now that I can do. I have kissed so many. I have kissed so many in so many different places. I kissed them and I didn't let it get that far. Their kiss couldn't bring me back to life, like yours can. There's no kiss that I want if it isn't this passionate. I am silent in all of my love and there is really nothing else that you could possibly give me. There is nothing else I want if our lips do not touch. I don't really care much for the gifts. I don't care much for the material things. 

I opened the book with the light as bright as the sun, and fell in. 

      I'm sitting in the darkness of the cave, and I have not moved. I crouch my head into my hands, I cry for a while, I sit for a while. I am paralyzed to this position, and I do not want to move even if I could. I do not want anyone to come save me anymore. I used to fantasize someone walking around the corner to send help. It doesn't matter anymore, no one is coming. I cannot remember the last time I had faith. The feeling of love is what got me here in the first place. I felt everything deeper than anyone else ever could imagine and now I am alone, haunted in my own nightmares. I have lived here so long that it really does not bother me to be alone anymore. The curse of loving so much and so deeply is that I hurt worse. I carry all this pain; all this suffering and I am broken because I do it alone. I tried to get out of this more than once. 

    I have tried so hard to get myself to stop listening to what the grown-ups say about me. Although no matter what I do, I keep coming back to the same spot. I am listening in the bathroom stalls. I am listening before they go to bed. I am listening to their texts and emails, and their laughing post. I am so alone, and it doesn't bother me to be alone until ten PM. I am alone and I have tried screaming for help, but they do not help, they laugh. Pulling someone else out of hell while I am still inside of it has been taunting on my mind and on my body but mostly my spirit. 

    I have been everywhere; I have walked far and long. I have listened to so many people that I thought were kind that it has exhausted me. I have been everywhere except out. No one protected me. No one showed me love or kindness in the same ways that I once have. Half of my day is taken up by listening to Brittany Swift and her bandwagon enemies that tagged along. The other half is trying to get some sleep, but I am unable to do that, because my closet bangs. My family does not care. They have turned a blind eye to my whispering cries. If I have told them anything they do not hear it, as if it never existed, there can't be a problem if they do not know about it. I'm gone before I'm dead. 

       The terrorizing screams fill my head, and I swear they become louder with each day. Each day it a new topic to laugh. I used to love more than this, I used to have more of a heart, but here as of late, I have walked dangerously close to near death. My hair floats as I sink myself inside of the water and I am not ashamed to feel nothing. The darkness is not frightening to me as long as I do not open my eyes. I allow my heavy heart to anchor my feet a little further. My throat caves itself in and the more I struggle to fight to breathe, the worse it hurts. My throat struggles within the strangle and my heart drops in all of its emptiness. My arms swing to my sides as I let my heart drop, I wished I had prayed to feel nothing. I am shocked and unexpectant to feel that my cold hands have been held. I have been kissed on the forehead and given love where my heart should be. People are angry with the questions that surround me, but they are so confused, they cannot help me, because they do not know how. And I cannot speak because it hurts to breathe. My spirit has lifted for just a brief moment, and I am rocked back and forth from someone who I wished could have been my mother. I am loved, I am held, I am given comfort. I am finally given a day of family while I am dressed in black. I am finally shown a bit of kindness; I am devastated to hear their footsteps exit the room. It is just as I am feeling comfortable enough to rest, a tall man with a rough round brown beard has disguised himself inside of a cheap suit. He presumes to be a man, although I see his true figure. Large, skinless, burned flesh, long fingernails. He is hungry as he is skinny. The disgusting creature slowly creeps up on my numb face, he rips my dress as he chokes the imprints from the rope. 

 

 

Raelyn

        I have rolled myself out of the bed that smells like days of odor and hard chicken nuggets. I feel nothing at all except this brokenness of a heavy heart. I feel like there is something I should do but my mind is so full, and I have become careless, my body no longer feels like my own. My arms and legs wiggle like Jello, but I am stiff and sore. I have not washed my hair in three days, my face is greasy from the unopened bottles of cleansers that I have felt pointless to use. My eyes have bagged in bruises because I feel it is pointless to sleep. I warm up the food as I can remember a time when hunger used to rumble inside of me, but I do not eat. I will admit there have been many days to where I have bolted to the door, grabbed my coat, fumbled for my keys because I knew I needed something, but when I opened the door and saw the sunlight I caved back into the darkness. Leaving this smelly place that does not even affect my nostrils anymore has become a battle that I choose to never argue with. I give it up and leave it alone, I cannot remember what it was that I needed to do, so I crawl back in bed. I sleep for days although most often, I do not sleep at all. It hurts to breathe using this heavy empty heart. I am unsure what day or time it is because the clock looks blurry, and the hour hand is always wrong. I don't care anymore. The view from the outside looks like swimming pools and bubbles with popped balloons but the inside is a blizzard of snow. My body sinks in further through the hard stained mattress. I am suddenly urged with feelings of movement that do not feel like they are my own, perhaps memories that cannot quite crawl to the surface of my mind, have jumped my flimsy bones out of this room. I do not hang my clothes in the closet anymore, I let them sit in piles of baskets, I rummage through the stacks as I change into something that isn't fit for the season, I do not care. For a brief moment I feel like someone else has dressed me and someone else has walked me. I sit in my car as I sweat in the heat for a long time, my heavy empty heart makes it too hard to move. I do not know where I am going, and without really thinking about it, I have begun to drive. 

         My feet tap on the gas pedals too quickly and the brakes squeak loudly. I stop and go, stop and go. The steering wheel turns sharp and the radio buzzes in the lost signal. I drive to places I do not remember. I drive past houses, I drive through stop lights, I drive past people hanging signs and wiping windows and I faintly remember their faces. My back aches as I gear the vehicle in park. My throat is stuffy as the season blooms and my body is chilled hidden underneath of these long sleeves. The hanging pictures inside of laminated key chains, sends my body into tears of shock. It is a little girl and her mom. I sit inside of my tears for minutes that feels like days. The mom looks almost like me, she is smiling, and her skin looks better, her blonde hair falls to her sides, her clothes fit her well, and she looks happy to be alive. My body feels jerked into movements that hurt. My eyes feel peeled open. Without thinking I am grabbing my purse that I am unsure if it has money or not, and I have suddenly looked at my surroundings to where I have parked. I am sitting in front of a large building with open windows, red and white stripped flapped shutters. People are laughing and having warm conversation, there is something about this place that makes me feel welcomed inside. The decals on the windows write JOE'S COFFEE.

      My head is buzzing as it traveled aches to my feet. My hair has strung out and sweat trickles down my skin, as my sweater sticks to my back. I pull the crinkled money out of my purse to order a steaming hot cup of caramel coffee. I've hung my neck over the Styrofoam cup as I breathe in the heat of the steam. I hear the busyness of the people, but I do not look up. A man that is average height walks slowly with a cane. He spills drips of coffee out of his Styrofoam, onto the floor as he grabs a seat inside of the booth in front of me. 

"Ah, there you are." He said to me as he is pointing his cane. He leans his small waist towards the counter as he lightly whispers, "you will do many great things child but first I need your help." I sit inside of my careless breath as I listen to the man with the grey hair. I try to explain to him that I do not have anything, but he cuts me off. "Never the mind that dear. I will give you seeds to bloom the flower, and you will sleep by the flower, once morning arrives, I will need you to bring me this flower planted from these seeds." He drops the seeds into the palms of my hands, as I examine the odd shapes. 

"Now tell me child, where abouts do you live?" He asked the question like he already knew. 

I tried to explain where to go, but I couldn't even tell you where I am. I speak but it comes out in mumbles. Parts of myself turn left and the other parts continue straight. I grab his boney wrinkled hands as I shove him to the car that I am really not even sure if it is mine. I speak of things I should remember. I drive in circles, and I still have no clue where I am going. The grey-haired man grabs my arm as I turn to hard, and the road was painted clearer. I drove us on top of hills and curvy turns, I drove us straight and we passed barns. I drove left with blinkers that ticked on my taillights. I drove twenty minutes past town and the buzzing radio winded the clock into circles, until the time pinned at five PM. 

   I have finally stopped to an open field of rocks that poked out of the grounds. I helped the old man walk in the mud with his cane, as dirt splashed the bottom of his khakis that jingled. He scratched his grey hair as he looked concerned, but he did not say anything when he watched me with pity. My home was in the very back away from the rest, I was in the bottom of the hill. My rock read Stephanie Drake. 

 

-Micah Vincent