The Blue Sky

It was poisonous, a disease that disintegrated my logic, tore at my heart, and made my skin try to seperate from itself. Although it wasn't always that way because if it was, it wouldn't have been so contagious. It was once a blissful, and mind numbing calmness that would settle over me and make me feel airy and powerful. It was like flying to the edge of the sky, only a hands length away from the barrier that seperates us and the universe, feeling like the world was yours, and then dropping rapidly and suddenly with no support, weights that pulled you down to your rocky fate crushing your body, squeezing every last breath out of your liquid lungs. I once felt like I could feel what used to be the group of cells pulsing in union turn chaotic and eratic, seperating and disinegrating. Turning against eachother. However it was only now that I realized just how destructive it was.

After loosing everything that made up my self worth, there was nothing left to say or feel. I turned on my heels, the way they had on me, and walked away, because sometimes your family and friends didn't intervene, sometimes they didnt stay there and support you, and sometimes they were just as poisoness and heartbreaking as the adiction. I walked the other way, down the street, thinking of what I'd done to myself, why god would let anything be so destructive, and why he'd allowed me to slowly lull myself into my grave. It's exactly like they say, every detail a mirror of my life, which made me feel worse, they had mapped and calculated every painful spiral that I was slowly falling down, and they'd warned me, they'd warned everyone. I still wasn't prepared. As I continued walking I felt my clothes peel away from my skin, like they were disgusted with me, although I knew that it was only because my once healthly figure had been reduced to a weak, and detorating assortment of bones and skin. I couldnt remember the last time I'd ate something real, something with subsidence and nutrition. That was part of what they'd said would happen, becoming sickly adicted to the point where you were bleed dry of any penny you'd ever owned. No money for food, or shelter. So I continued walking, with no particular destination in mind, not that there was one.

Tay Tay, thats what my mom used to call me. she would scream at the top of her lungs for me when she got home, awaiting my greeting. But before I could get to her, she would hide, and we'd spend the next hour playing a game of hide and seek. Just as I found her (and I always did) she would grab me and hug me so hard Ifelt my eyes bulging out of my head like a toy. And I sat there because I loved her, and she smelled like honey and pine, the freshest smell in world. Sometimes I like to think that i'm a kid again, and my moms hidding, and I just cant find her, it's easier than facing the cruel reality that I am no longer Tay Tay and my mom no longer cares for my greetings. Its everything I can do to try and diminish that voice in my head that says "she's left you".

I remeber my early teens being filled with gosip, hairdye, makeup, and malls, those superficial rituals and normalties that had my friends and I completely consumed, almost like my adiction, but of course nothing like it at the same time. My best friend was Megan, she looked like a mirage of myself, a petit brunette with green eyes to big for our face, skin that always seemed too tanned durring the winter, but brilliant in the summer, and a mass of curls that were nither perfect ringlets or waves. Megan had always said, "You can't not like someone who looks like you.", the simplest idea I'd always thought, although not very acurate. We used to be the talk of the school, everyone wanted to be like us, and be seen with us. We were efffortlessely popular, niether of us had ever intended to be so, and frankly we couldn't have cared less. We spent every waking hour with eachother on the phone, which of course drove our parents mad, but again we didnt care.

I felt tears sting at my face, not knowing whether they'd come from the icy, frigid air, or my own pain.

I had always considered Megan to be my life force, but the thing about Megan was she could have been your best friend or your worst enemy, and she'd warned me when I first started using, that if I continued she would never speak to me again. I didn't believe her, I said that she was simply "over reacting" but Megan knew all to well what this disease did to you, (family experiences). When I continued she started isolating me, slowly but surely. Thats when my addiction began to spiral out of control.

My thoughts were jumbled by the sound of a car horn on the street. I looked around for anything I recognized, but the streets were forgien. My skin began to tingle, and I felt chilled from the inside out. I passed a small boutiqe with mirrored glass in the display, underneath was a montra that stated "Only YOU can create yourself." I began to consider what that meant, i had chosen the drugs, but I never intended to become the very thing that scared me as a child. When I walked pass that mirror I was startled by my reflection, even my body was shocked. My skin was pale, lifeless and crawling as if attempting to jump off my bones and escape. My hair was thin, and I was slowly balding, my eyes were bugling, and surrounded by purple rings, my cheks had caved in on themselfs and my once voluptouos lip had become thin, and cracked. That was my breaking point I thought, my body was trmebling, my eyes were leaking, no tears, but a constant stream of water, and my knees were no longer stable. I didn't fall though, I stood, and turned once again to continue walking, but my knees didnt hold up, and soon I dropped to the ground. The pavement was frozen and rough, but the unwavering strength of it was oddly comforting.

I was horrified, not just by my appearance, but of how well I'd destroyed myself. I was different, I'd trapped and killed the carefree, blissful and innocent Tay Tay, and replaced her with an imposter, a girl who stole, and who had some large pot of self hatred burried so deep inside of her that it functioned as an organ, feeding posinous thoughts and blood through her course viens. I had turned into the poster child of the kids drug education program that police had designed for schools, the same program that I had once sat through and thought, that will never be me, but ignorance is bliss.

My body was becoming numb, probably from the cold of the ground, and I heard screaming and yelling, cars with drivers who clearly wanted me to remove myself from the ground and thier way. They didn't care about some poor girl wandering the streets alone, because to them I wasnt a poor girl, I was a disgusting parasite that was a sad example of hummanity. Sympathy and pitty doesn' t come easly to people like me.

I lifted myself from the ground with sharp pains moving excitedly through my body, as if they were looking to reach even inch of it's surface. I continued walking. Darkness begining to envelope me, and the dirty city so I laid myself down on the city bench waiting for the night to catapolte itself onto our section of the world.

As my body began to slow in rythm I began to drift off into a dream. In my dream I was no longer the imposter, I was healthy, and beautiful with skin like cream, and sparlking eyes. I was surrounded by ten foot tall corn stalks, and a beautiful and vibrant blue sky, streaked with the softest clouds I could have imagined. There was a breeze that was cool, and reaking of freshness, almost like a perfect autumn day, but it was clearly summer. The sun was warm and I could feel every cell of my body absorbing it with delightfullness. I was on a farm, with the endlesss field of cornstalks and in the distance stood a quaint red barn. There was nothing that resembled civilization and that was probably one of the most beautiful thing about it. No one was there to judge me, or give me side glances that said "im appalled with you" there was no temptation, which at times was so strong I feared I die if i didnt get my hands on something quickly, (ironic right?). The very thing that was killing me, I couldn't live without. I walked through the cornstlaks amazed at simplisity of them, and after what felt like hours, I came to the edge of the farm. The whole face of the farm seemed to drop off, and the grass turned into jutting rock. the air was misty, and I heard the rushing sound of water before I saw it. The scene made me cry, before this addiction swalloed me, my family and i would take vacations to the beach. It was my favourite part of my year. I loved the water. The way it was calm and peaceful, yet powerful and unknown. The way civilization was abliterated in its masses, leaving only the water and you. In fact the sea is where I've always wanted to die. When i was young I fantasized about coming here when I was really old, slipping into the water, and lettting go.

I was standing at the top of a waterfall, that cascaded down into a sea that extended as far as I could see. The colours we so vibrant they hurt, but at the same time were too mesmerising to look away, it was like something off of CSI- Miami. There wasn't a word in the world that could have accurately capptured the essence of this scene. There were countless amount of flowers, each and everyone different from the last. The smell of pollen and sweetness consumed me. I sat down on the cool rock and let my feet dangle over the edge, giving my body a taste of adrenaline. This was the best I'd felt in years, as light as I was in body weight I always felt heavy, like my organs were filled with stones, pulling me toward the ground, and here my body seemed to float and glide across the air.

I was suddenly hit with a wave of sadness and anger, the sweet taste of peace made me feel a little bitter. I was so angry with my family for leaving me, and Megan for abandoning me when she knew what was going to happen, I was mad at the dealers who had watched me kill myself and took advantage of me, but more than any of them I was mad at myself for letting things get out of hand. The moment I finished my thought I knew that I had no right to blame anyone for the way they reacted, they didnt understand, and that was expected.

When I looked up there were two figures standing in the distance and they began to walk toward me, and for some reason I felt like I was waiting for them. When they came into view, I knew instantly who they were, it was my mom and Megan. I began to cry and my excitment got the better of me so I ran towards them letting them embraced me , I smelt the honey and pine and the tears came faster. It was one of those moment you wish you could replay over and over again until you knew every last detail. When they released me my mom and Megan each took one of my hands.

"Sweetheart, its time." my mom said,

" Time for what mom?,"

" Time to come back to reality, Taylor.`` Megan replied.

I looked down, I had always known it was a dream but I wasn`t ready to let it go. I couldnt bare awaking to that city bench in my normal state of misery.

`` Not yet, I want to stay here with you,`` I commented.

Megan`s face looked sad, like she knew what I was thinking, about that city bench , and wallowing in my misery.

``Taylor...think back to before you started, started dreaming.`` not once throught out that sentence did she bare to look at me.

I began to think, I remebered my knees buckling, and sitting on the bench, but that was it. It was fuzzy and blurry mess.

``I, I.....I can`t remeber.`` I felt panicked and sick.

`` Its time to come back Taylor.`` Megans voice sounded faint. ``Everything is going to be okay very soon.`` There was something wrong with how she was talking, like she was coaxing me, and preparing me for a reailty that I was unaware of.

``Honey, it`s time to go,`` my mom explained. I felt hurt and disapointed. The edge of scene began to deteriorate, and i couldn`t bare to see everything go, and to see my mom and Megan disapear so I shut my eyes. When I opened them I saw people, and lights, but things we unclear. It was hard to swallow, and my mouth tasted like copper. Liquid was clogging my throat. My body was numb. I was no longer on the bench, but on what felt like the pavement. When I looked around I saw a face close to mine, this time it was not Megan, or my mom, but a police officer.

``We`re doing everything we can `ma`am, dont move.`` as soon as he said dont move I attempted to move my legs, and wiggle my toes, but nothing happened. I started sobbing. I knew I was dying, and I knew that they couldn`t help me, they hadn`t moved my body. I was too fragile. So I stopped fighting and I tried to relax. I let my thoughts envelope me.

My life was slipping, and although the drugs had played a large part in that, it was a car that killed me, just a car. That made me smile, there was something that had me at peace knowing that the drugs didnt kill me. I think deep down I always wanted to die before the I let myself be killed by the drugs, the idea of that death was sickening. I wished that my mom really could of been here, so I could tell her that her little Tay Tay was still here, deep down, and that I loved her. I wanted to tell Megan that looking the same had nothing to do with why we were friends, but that she thought that was something I'd loved about her. I wanted to scream at God for taking me so early, but I also wanted to thank him for taking me from my misery. There were so many things to say but i just didnt have the time. Just as I felt my last breath being drawn from my liquid lungs I pulled myself back into that dream, and I climbed down the rocks under that blue sky, into the sea that was endless and let my head slip under water, it was they way I'd always wanted to die, and even if it wasn't real, for the first time in a long time felt like I had control. I was finally at peace.