trigger warning: abuse,
blood, suicide attempt

sea and the rock below
cocked to the undertow
— roslyn, bon iver

the girl's pov

(flashback/when she was 9)

— from tear-stained journal pages

it was a lethal woman
my father brought home.

but oh, she was so beautiful,,

she looked like she was made of the sun,,

i. her eyes were the
color of cold. seraphic
mint blue, a pretty mask
hiding a rotting heart.
eyes the color of a lullaby,
hiding cruel intentions,,

ii. her skin was like pearly
plastic, flawless, dusted
with a shade of gold as if
she were immortal, as if
she bathed in the sun itself,,

iii. her hair, layered shades
the color of summer wind,
pastel golds and silvers
laced with dynamite and a
grandeur no man could resist,,

she looked like an angel,,

but no. she was a cruel woman, and i saw right through her. under the blissful eyes and soft lips, she's a woman of blood and dior. she's a woman who forces her scars on the souls of others, and that other was me.

she raged war against me, the battlefield. since the very first moment my young eyes met hers. at the age of 9 i became a soldier, too young to carry the weight of 10 lifetimes between her shoulder blades,,

yet i did.

my stepmother was my downfall.

[PRESENT TIME, AGE 11]

she watched her red
              shoes
       against the
smears of blue
 gray foam on the shore

i feel safe here

she felt safe by the place
     that collected the
sky's tears
               the place
willing to embrace her body
if she were brave
              enough
to jump

the waves shattered
        against the rocks the
way
her mother's
                      photographs
shattered against
her stepmother's fists

(flashback/when she was 9)

— from tear-stained journal pages

the woman's a monster when dad's gone,,

dad's always gone.

i had to watch as she snapped the wooden picture frames,
stamped on pressed flowers, with the scent of yesterday,
with the scent of memories and my mother,,

i had to watch as shredded polaroids collected on the ground,
like a pile of faded snow of my mother's face
and a family once happy,,

i watched,,

when she grabbed my arm her claws sunk into my skin,
drawing blood. she dragged her hands down my wrists,
leaving scars,,

a million shards of pain pierced my body as my cheek hit the floor,
the glass now stained with blood.

[PRESENT TIME]

there was a battle
        in her kneecaps but
she stood

there was
            a battle
in her heart
                 in her will to live

her red shoes moved
                   closer
 to the edge of      
        the cliff

(flashback/when she was 10)

— from tear-stained journal pages

i am 10 years old today, in october,,

i will paint a world for myself
to imagine, i will celebrate this
day alone, while hurting. but
i maybe... maybe if i pretend enough
happiness could be more than just
an illusion

🌙

fingers thread through my hair and
yank back until my scalp burned

you looked at me my skin
explodes into cyanide coated flames and
it burns me alive. there's a demon
inside you, filling your eyes and
traveling into my stomach
with electric agony and hatred and
it's eating me alive and very soon it
will kill me

(i hate you so much i can't breathe)

the chair falls with me and so does my
consciousness, for a second. my skin
knows the taste of your fist in my cheek
all too well. and then your foot is exploding
into my stomach and it hurts more
than the time when you smashed the
photographs of mother into the wall,
but only for a second

at least the ringing in my ears took
that sound away. i hear the sound of canvas
ripping apart and falling down like
paper stars as the master's only solace
is destroyed

and then you're gone

but when i couldn't walk, i crawled

crawled as i coughed out blood from
my splintered insides, crawled with a dark
heather blue blush spreading over my cheek,
crawled to the tattered paper on the floor
petals of my watercolor soaked
masterpiece

and i'd fill each pastel panel with scribbles
for it was the only way i could express my pain,

because my soul is a massive building of chaos
built from the stones that were meant to bury me
but instead i modeled it into a skyscraper

(that skyscraper is falling
but so will i, with or without grace.

i will fall with courage extracted
from the memories of my mother)

(inserted years later, between the lines)

i was yet too young to understand
what pain can do to you over time.
it's like water shaping a
rock into who it is and who it can ever
be. i was yet too young to understand
that life was a cruel artist and i'm just
a piece of discarded paper,
trying to find a way to color
myself into something
i could never be

[PRESENT TIME]

she jumped

the ocean
     swallowed her
            that day
when she only had
                 11
years
written over her bones.

the ocean's pov

i've tasted her tears
and her grief

i could just let her die

but i didn't.

her lyrics aren't finished,
and neither is her melody.
i am the ocean, i drown tormented
poets and artists and regret
it afterward. because
they could have changed
the world.

i will not let her drown,,

yet.

she will wake up on the beach,
the waves softly
caressing her skin like
a blanket.

like a promise,

🌙

bones, blood and teeth erode
with every crashing node
— roslyn, bon iver