Shards

I crawled around gathering the broken mirror pieces in my arms. I can fix it. Everything will be alright. But instead a darkness consumed me and I was shoved into the shards. Laughter rang around me, "Now you're as ugly outside as you are inside," faceless shadows grinned as the glass slid down my arms and legs. The shards cut deep and left scars everywhere. Each cut was a harsh word and the pieces of the mirror I thought were my own slowly showed their true colors. 

 

The blood ran down my arm in little streams that started with a small pearl-like bubble at the cut. I wept silently and tried to hold in my sobs as I rocked back and forth a blade in one hand and blood on the other. The new scar overlapped countless others and I went to add another as I heard a more yelling float in from the other room.

 

"And wher's that a'cussed brat?!" my father slurred.

 

"Calm down! She's doing her homework!" my mother yelled at him while I heard her rinsing off dishes.

 

"Lousy child..." he sat down and turned on the TV. 

 

I trembled by my bed as I dropped the knife on the floor. Why doesn't my mother stick up for me? Why does she just let him do whatever he wants? 

 

The red beads trickled down my wrist. Right now I am hurting. Right now I can't see past my tears, but tomorrow no one will ever know. I'll have a new scab but no one will see it under my thin, black sleeves. No one will care about me. 

 

"Damn it..." I whispered to myself, "Damn it all..." I curled my arms around my legs not caring about the blood stains on my jeans. If only... If only I weren't useless. If only I weren't so scared of death. Then... then all this would be over.

 

~~~

The next morning was the same as every other. I cursed the wind and skipped breakfast so I wouldn't have to sit by the person who had lovingly made the man who despises me food and sent him off to work with a kiss and a few Advil for his hangover. I was looked at with a sigh and then sent out the door. 

 

It wasn't that my parents didn't want a child. They just didn't want me. I had thought this over and over in my mind and everything made sense. I had memories. I knew what I was before. I knew I was loved then. I was what they had wanted back then before shards stained my purity and I turned into something they despised. 

 

 

Ugly. Stupid. Emo. It's nothing I hadn't heard before... why do the same words have to cut so deep each time? It's not fair that I can't get used to this pain. All I ever feel is pain. I can't escape... It's not fair. 

 

My mind was alive with cries and screams as I drearily walked out of school towards the yellow bus that would take me to a different kind of lonely world. I hesitated with each step wondering if bolting along the sidewalk and running until I found a cliff or the ocean or a hole to hurl myself into for eternity would be a better idea. The slight stinging in my arm didn't help much either. Some time today the cut from the night before had opened again and now the cut was drying against my shirt making each movement tug on the wound. I tried to convince myself I didn't care but each sting reminded me of the night before.

 

"You look like death," Dalen's voice found my ears and I turned to look at him. I didn't make a sound as he approached, "Not to say that's a bad thing," he smiled kindly with his arms folded over a skull emblem on his shirt, "You busy?" he asked almost as if he knew the answer. I slightly shook my head to confirm it and his smile broadened as he started walking down the sidewalk past the bus, compelling me to follow him. 

 

When I managed to speak hardly any words formed in my mind, "What-why... where are we going...?"

 

He shrugged as I caught up beside him and he adjusted his pace to fit mine, "Wherever it's dark." He marched straight ahead in the sunlit world and I wondered what he could mean. There wasn't much ahead and the town would soon be behind us. There might be some fields ahead... maybe trees... I'd never walked this way for long. He broke me from my thoughts again as he seemed to have formed a habit in, "What's your favorite color?"

 

"Black..." I answered matter of factually. I was clothed head to toe in black. Isn't it obvious?

 

He nodded, "Mine too. I thought as much, but then again, outward appearances can be deceiving..."

 

What's wrong with him...?

 

"Do you like new moons or full moons?" Another random question...

 

"I never thought about it..."

 

"I like full moons. They have an eerie beauty to them especially when they reflect on water."

 

"Why are you-"

 

"It's a full moon tonight," he continued after cutting me off, "maybe if you see it you'll agree."

 

I stopped mid-stride and frowned at him in a helpless way with an expression of confusion. He stopped at looked back at me with an arched brow. "What are you planning? Why are you talking to me? Did someone put you up to this..?"

 

He chuckled and shook his head, "I'd have knocked them out if they did. Come on. You should know. You noticed it before I did. We're alike. And I'm not just talking about the way cool people like us dress."

 

'Cool people like us'. How is this 'cool' in any way? I frowned as anger boiled underneath my skin, "You don't know anything!" I shouted as tears burned in my eyes begging to be freed.

 

His eyes became very serious on that abandoned sidewalk that started to turn into a dusty dirt road and then a dip of a grassy hill only a few yards away. He pulled up his sleeve and revealed a crisscross of scars on his forearm, "Oh don't I?"