Stephanie

       To get inside I must jump in, I must contain it, but I am lost within. I must dive inside of circles that spin. Orbed flashes of light globe the midnight sky. Simple as day, although the day is seemingly not that simple. I need to go home. I want to be at peace in my home. I am bitter within my own my heart, I am dragged by the pull of the string that tugs, and it yanks myself from the between. I have now traveled back in time. 

    My face is clammy and cold, I look terribly ill, I am fair as a ghost. I am fumbling with the motions of days that do not feel like they belong to me, my heart is thumping, but it feels like I am barely breathing at all. I live inside painful memories as I do nothing. It is exhausting to simply withhold but a single breath. The blood is still flowing underneath of my flesh, it doesn't change the simplicities that I still feel dead. I have watched myself live out the days in the before, and how nice that would be, to physically be there, outside from the within. My eyes fill with tears, as I should be saddened by the distinct fact that I would rather just sit here. I really just do not care to listen to the bore. I do not care to hold conversations I have seen inside of the before, in all the wildest days, I have never had so much trouble with this pick of a brain. In the beginning I would often speak to soon or too quick. I was anticipant for the next task, ready to improve and salvage the next broken piece. I was always in a hurry, and flat on my feet. Sometimes, my throat would collect dust, and it had been quite the struggle to pace myself. I could not wait for the next few weeks to arrive because I missed the person I was, I would be impatiently anxious to be reminded of open nostrils so that I may breathe. 

     Something has happened to me, and I could not tell you what, or perhaps I could, perhaps I should it least try. I would rather just sit here while I focus on the energy of the seconds from the day, that it takes to breathe. I do not have the drive it takes to explain myself; I do not have the happy wholeheartedly spirit to give away. I dread the small talk, the words and the thought, I have to put into it beforehand, as well as the after math from the effort used for breath in one setting. 

    I would like to say that I miss the old me, but I however do not. The only place that I am trying to be is the land inside of the in between, and parts of myself in the before. Just point me in the right direction, I didn't need to know about the weather forecast for the rest of the week. I don't really care about the appointments for your hair. I don't care because I am lost in between through the middle of it. I don't care because the minutes I have left of the day are counting, I am inside the book, the timing of spells. The aches in my throat and throughout my back, the joints that pop and crack, feels like I have pulled a string. Everything is different now; the darkness consumes me. I am up and down, just to relive it again, but don't ask me how I've been. My body and my head no longer correspond together. 

 

 

The Hospital

     Once I began, I opened the book that shined with light from the sun, and I would close it again. I would open the book of heavenly music inside of a quiet room at the end of the day, but then it became a habit sort of way, it became a necessity, it became an obsession, one page could never satisfy the urge. I just wanted to feel loved and even at that, I wanted to know love. I wanted to know where exactly where I was going and how I could get there, I hadn't realized my feet was walking through mud and over flooded water. When I walked through the doors with people speaking of me in a negative way, that's how I walked in. I was on the outside listening, although it broke my heart to hear the people that I thought were kind had said, I could not stop coming back to the door. I guess I had high hopes, something would change, perspectives and what they were saying would change. There were just too many people talking at once, all within the same time and I heard them all. I walked to one room to the other, but there was one room that gave me the chills. 

     Suddenly, I stood inside of the dark, weak old skinny trees over headed me. The air was a foggy mist. I saw many truths while I was inside of the within. I saw too much, and I saw too little. I could not stop listening to what people had said, to fully grasp it inside of my head. 

     It is a breezy midnight sky; it was cloudy and cold. If I could go back and choose to burn the book, I still wouldn't. The secrets of the truth are locked within.  There are many truths with much to continue. So many secrets, with so much anger. At night her closet bangs, at night a large bold man wants to taste of her. She gathers up the ropes to hang. I have fallen back, crashed mirrors have fallen out of place. The man has a rough round brown beard, cloaked in a black leather jacket, green eyes, around six feet tall. I have lost track of time of the days, I have been very cold, standing inside of the room I did not know. 

     The book wanted me as badly as I wanted it. The thick edges would rattle as it shook, I could hear the music play as it lured me in. I opened the brown wooden book of spells as it flipped open to just the right page.  I have handed a buttery sconed biscuit to the one who deserved it most. I have carried the angel inside of the sun and placed her to the top of the stairs. I have lived here and there, all the while my body was not functioning. I do not regret the path of the storm, that blew me away and landed into the cold. I do not regret the choices I had made or the book I had opened. I do not regret the things that I said, regardless of whether or not, it had made sense. And though my story is incomplete, I don't feel sad anymore because I know I saved someone from the beneath. I spoke and lived life inside of the in between. I was inside of my living area as I cooked and cleaned. I made friends before we became to meet. We laughed inside of our messes; we became friends that were true. There was no hate or darkness between us two. Life was beautiful here and I never wanted to leave. I moved her to the couch while I did the work, I read stories and sang songs. Until one day like clockwork. She had vanished and she had gone away. Tears streamed down my face. The living room looked so differently now, I was alone, and I did not want to venture life without my best friend.  It has taken me quite a while to realize, I have been lost inside of this book. I suppose the timing is now, that I must open a new door. It has taken me a while to stand back up from my knees. I have simply lost the care and all of my belief.  Though I am not entirely sure where I am walking, I know that I must brace myself for the sadness that lurks ahead. There is much to talk about the story I lived in the land above, the world between, the light within, and it all started with the book of spells that I read.  There is much to tell you, and I'm not exactly sure where to begin.

 

-Micah Vincent