Crescendo into Life.

Another free-write! It was meant to be a free-verse poem, but turned into a small story or a musing of my thoughts and experiences. :)

I live in a place that was once called the "dream world."

In a world where anything could happen, if you only dreamt it.

"Ask the universe," they said, "anything, and she will give it to you."

So I did. The night my father lay on the medical cot-pale, still, and cold to the touch,

My mother, shocked to silence fell to the ground and sobbed silent, bitter tears, 

I screamed out to the universe. "Help him, help him and I will do anything you want!"

But she didn't answer.
As a child I couldn't understand, it didn't sink in. 

I tried to comfort my mother, let her know that everything would be okay, that there was still hope.

I tried to tell her to have faith-to dream harder.

Her empty eyes stared up into mine, and I knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Several years passed and I started to recognize that same lifeless pigment echo itself in the crevices of my own skin.

I didn't go outside.  

I stopped dreaming.

Stopped caring, really.

My father wasn't the greatest man in the world, we all have our faults,

But to a child showered with his never-ending love, could do no wrong.

His pedestal was that of gold, towering high above the rest, shining brilliantly in the sun.

Death was like chainfire from then on out. 

Huh. Fire. 

The very thing that brings light and warmth, but at the same time left deep, blackened scars on my heart.

The first time I really experienced it was with my father.

After that, someone close to me would vanish every year. 

On Valentine's Day, my grandfather. Two weeks before my birthday my grandmother.

Then my father's parents, all of my great-grandparents, my uncle. A cousin. An aunt. A friend.

Suicide. Blood clots. Overdose. Heart-attacks. Brain tumors. Cancer. 

Words that no child should ever harness in her vocabulary. 

I was then moved from a private to a public school.

Gradually, more words started to pop up.

Genius. Anti-social. Perfect.

These words, all backed by the notion that I might have had some kind of inner wisdom, not yet tapped into by the other kids around me. 

It wasn't wisdom by any means.

It was just understanding. Experience. 

Though it hardened me, instead of sinking into the bowels of depression like my mother, I chose to learn from it.

I understood my depression, and in turn it understood me. 

I paid it no attention.

I chose to throw the skein of yarn into the farthest corner of the room and watched it chase the string's shadow curiously, entertaining it for hours.

It would always come back though. 

Always reminding me that it was here to stay. 

Begging me to play again.

I should have burned it then and there.

Lit one end of the yarn with the red cigarette lighter my uncle was so fond of, and watch it burn from one end to the other.

Eventually, I became as wound up in the cheap string, too caught up in how the world told me to throw it.

Not like this, like -this-.

Underhand.

Overhand.

Straight.

Curve.

Backwards.

Forwards.
I cried out to the universe again. "Take away this pain, please, I'll do anything!"
Still she remained quiet. 

The turning point came from a pair of scissors ironically. Not used to cut the string, but myself.

It took one tired, weakened police officer, and my mother's broken heart to wrench the blade out of my hands.

With it, together, they cut the string, and it went away.

I didn't hate her for it.
The universe that is.

I'm sure she had many more people to attend to, more important matters than mine. 
I had a roof over my head, food to eat, and what little was left of my family loved me more than anything.

I had even experience the love of a father. 

Some kids didn't even get that.

Author's Note

I found this only this morning in my portfolio! This was something I never published or finished, but I thought I would share it because there are several parts about it that I really love! I wanted to pick it up and try to finish it before I published it, but I felt like maybe that would take away from it. From what I can remember this was written in one small session when I was at a very low point, and I feel like adding anything else to it would take away the meaning and true essence of it's body.