13 years young
March

He visited me.

He found me in my corner under the tree where the grass grew tall and the leaves that hung on the branches swooped low. Swathing my world in shade, in darkness.

He stood by the door, blonde hair tousled and sharp grey eyes staring. He just stared.

And when I met his eyes I just knew, there was this zing in the air. It forced you to pay attention, to care but I didn't want to.

I wanted to stay lost in this new world that I found myself thrust in, I wanted to stay shuttered behind the glass walls of my new prison. The exterior was different but it was still another box, another cell, an institution that fed us with propaganda.

This place was no different to the dank cells I had dwelled in for all my life, the only difference was that back then I had found oblivion in those cells. I'd had family even though it was short lived. Now I was alone.

There was something about loneliness you could never quite grasp. My loneliness wasn't the blinding type that had me clawing at the earth or screaming to the gods for hope. My loneliness was that deep feeling that settled into your being and clung to every cell in your body until all you knew was how to be alone even when you weren't.

Even when he stared at me and made my skin come alive I was still alone. It was a feeling that was so deep rooted I would be lost without the companion of my loneliness.

The warden of this new prison let him in amongst us "free" females. He was about to imprison one of us with his grey eyes and I knew it would be me. I didn't want to be a prisoner, not his or in here but being a prisoner was something that was second nature to me. It was all I knew. All I could remember.

I didn't want his company not when I waited for word of that brown haired female, hoping that she was still alive and fighting. Her fight gave me hope, the tiny niggle disrupted my natural composure but I welcomed that change. Only when it came to her was change welcomed with open arms and mind.

The memory of her poor back torn to shreds as they ripped her family apart was something I could never forget. It was one of my biggest regrets. Those kids, wet blue and brown eyes gazed at me as if I could save them but I couldn't because I couldn't even save myself. They were too young to hear it. To see it in their child like minds, where horror stories manifested and consumed them. They were too young.

So when that warden let that male stand near me I pretended he was not there. She told him my name but still I let it fall on the howl of the wind, blowing to where my parents lay.

Flies and maggots twisting through and through their bodies as red seeped from the holes in their skin. Just like that female whose life essence drip dropped from those gashes in her back and down her flesh. Seeping into the earth as a crimson tide seeped into my vision.

It hurt to look at how they crumbled her, a strong woman. A mother, a sister, a human. Beat down until she was nothing but an oozing mess of struggling heartbeats.

And this male who tried to touch me was one of them. He hurt her and so he hurt me.

I would not be lost in the pale grey of his cool eyes, no I would only see red. The Crimson of blood that stained his hands. I would drown in my red tide before I shook his hand in greeting.

Would he have stood by while it was me?

"Carson," he mumbled, head facing the ground as he kicked at my sanctuary. Upturning the earth in his nervousness. His blonde hair flopped about on his forehead, the wind blowing it too and throw. He looked harmless, weak and unsure of himself but these creatures were not trustworthy. I knew the damage they caused. He couldn't be trusted.

"Vanya, I was umm wondering would you like company" he stammered hands rubbing his neck as his eyes flickered away from the ground to look at me. His eyes widened at my blank stare, his face turning a pinkish colour as his eyes fell back down to the ground.

He stood there for what seemed like hours', mumbling under his breathe and trying to talk himself into action. He was a weird male but he held no interest to me.

There was a part that called liar, screamed that I lied to myself. This wolf interested me but beneath my cool blanket of indifference the voice was insignificant. Even as it told me to console him, I dismissed the urge to follow the voice. Where had this voice- this intuition been all my life. I didn't need change, not within my body or my mind and not with this male.

I was fine being here, the tree at my back provided me with enough companionship until that female came. The life oozing from its roots spoke to me, the vibrations of earth. It was cathartic the way the tree soothed my deep rooted pain. It felt my red and blessed me with its green.

As long as I had the tree I could deal with the aesthetic glass that surrounded my life. I could even deal with this male even though I didn't need his fake care.

Did he think I could forget what his kind did to my kind? Had I been but a few years older he wouldn't be looking at me this way. No my back would be split wide and leaking my life's essence and where would he be?

Would he have whispered his name in greeting while I cried for an end, as that fire hot whip tore through my back.

Would he have stopped it, or would he have stood by like I did that female and those women their men?

So I let him walk away. Shoulders crumpled in defeat and head hanging low.

His back turning as he made his way through those glass doors and out of my prison.

See he was free. Free to leave here whenever he felt the need. Flittering to and throw like an errant bird. I was just a caterpillar, fuel for his future. Food for thought. I had no home and I had no family, all I had was my loneliness. My old lover who had greeted me with wide spun arms at the age of 7.

Who had wrapped me in a cocoon so tight my wings were never able to take flight and I suffocated in my own built chrysalis. No metamorphosis for me, mother nature was not that kind to me. She denied me my right to live splendidly for those short days before death greeted me.

Instead she left me waiting, the days trickled by and a part of me waited for that female. A battle inside of me, one side whispering in my ear, voice husky telling me I was happy alone. I didn't need anyone but my loneliness. Hands wrapped around each other as we twisted our merry dance in the darkness. Not even my shadow for company.

Then there was this side of me that was growing with a fervency that couldn't be tampered down. Mellow voice singing a soft lullaby in my ear. 'Hush you no not', the song told me 'have no fear'.

I wanted to listen I did, my mind ticked at night, two sides fighting within me. I wanted to need her. The female and those two little kids, But I couldn't because I had failed them.

I had failed to stop them from seeing. Seeing with their minds, what their eyes could not see.

I failed her and I failed me.

My hope for a future warred with my loneliness. Knives gnashing at each other, chipping away at my resolve but in the end I returned to what I knew best. My old friend lay in wait with arms opened wide and a blanket of isolation waiting for my return. I felt at peace in the cold of my own isolation.

It was home

© Layla.A.D ™ 2016-2017

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