The Slippery Slope of Fire and Hopes

In the waning light of the sun, the rays that brushed warmth against my skin brought me the last moment I found myself to enjoy. It was a breath of life against the cold air that surrounded me ever since I was born. But alas, it wasn’t enough to scare it away and let it mingle with the autumn wind. Instead, it just made me realise how different I was as the heat ignited the butane gas that had been spreading ever since I can remember.

It was summer this year when everything crumbled to ashes.

Long story short, life was shit.

High school hadn’t been the best for I always thought that senior year would bring me all the men I could push onto a bed, or women that could pin me down and make me their slave. All with their consent by the way, I’m not a dirty animal.

Instead, I had to grieve for my mother who was killed by my father, and to see him later locked behind bars shouting “that wretched woman made my life hell.” was scarring to say the least. My brother didn’t take it very well; he got out most days and found solace behind cold alleyways, smoked pot and probably got a million STD’s. But he didn’t care.

I tried to talk him out of it, but I couldn’t. Moreso, he didn’t listen

“What’s it to you huh?” he said after a long night of drinking behind the local Trader Joe’s. His face was in hues of blue and black, bruised from fists with faux gold rings.

“I’m trying to help you here Luke!” I was nearing tears when my eyes grazed upon his bloodied face, I could taste blood from how hard I was biting my lips, trying to will the tears that glazed my eyes.

“You’re the only family I’ve got left. I don’t want you gone too.”

“Well it’s better that you leave now because hoping won’t help you.” he slurred his words as he swayed with an empty bottle in his hand. His footsteps were loud against the wooden floorboards as he tried to steady himself and see me eye to eye.

“Mom’s gone. Dad’s gone. What’s stopping me from joining them?”

He said it so casually, his breath warm of alcohol and puke. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to shout at him and punch him and kill him myself. What was he thinking? He had me, so why did he want to be gone? Was it just too much for him? It was too much for me too. but why did it seem as if he didn’t care about how I felt?

Why didn’t he care?

He stumbled out of the door, leaving me shook at his words. I watched as he stepped one foot out and turned around. His eyes eyeing me, judgement pierced through his swollen eyelids.

“If only you were beautiful, your body would have made us money by now, and Dad didn’t have to kill Mom.”

It cut through like a knife, and next thing I knew, I shouted at him and scratched my fingers across his putrid face.

What was wrong with him? How did he become so animalistic? Had the loss really brought out the worst in him? People say drunk words are sober thoughts, so did these thoughts live in his mind?

At that moment I knew that he was a disgusting piece of shit and nothing would help him.

I was on my own. I would be the one leaving him.

So I left, packed my bags with all I had and ran off.

I was quick to find solace in park benches; I scrounged for food in theater and restaurant dumpsters. I took my baths in fountains with soap I found from supermarket dumpsters. And I watched the passing of clouds and stars under the night sky.

In the mornings, I sat down on sidewalks and held out my hand in the hopes of feeling a cold metal miracle placed on my hand, or a wrinkled dollar would crumple beneath my palms. But being hopeful was the drug that I found myself overdosing on. It was the one that stabbed me with every person who batted their eye or kicked a pebble towards my way. Or those who passed with spiteful words on their mouths; disgusted and angry on how I was a nuisance in their way.

Why was the world cruel? Why was life cruel? The only family that I had was taken away by a deranged marriage and a drug addiction that popped up so suddenly. The streets I treaded were harsher than the ones in movies and TV.

Life makes a disappointment out of your hopes. It crushes them whenever you see a glimpse of it through your window. It has its way of mocking you until you surrender with bloodied wrists or hung above a fallen chair.

It’s cruel.

And to add salt to the wound, no one cared.

Not a single soul helped me bandage my bleeding wrists or cut the rope that was turning me blue

And with that I decided to give up.

Everything was going down, so why not go down with it?

What was the point of trying to hold on to breaking beams with ashen hands when all that’s left to do was slip into the fire?

It’s crackling was calming to the ears and lulling to my eyes. Warmth against my skin that never seemed to let go of the cold.

I glowered at the beautiful sunset while I was met with scathing heat that melted the skin off of my bones. I was aflame even when I jumped into the water and was pulled by my unconscious mind down to it’s dark depths.

I was still aflame when I reached the bottom and brought forth light to shipwrecks and skeletons alike.

On the surface, the sunset was beautiful.

In the darkness, I was the muse for all the dead to see.

I was their sun.

I was beauty.