Poor Me

I walked through the dark damp forest as my arms stung with cuts and scratches that the branches of trees had wished upon me. I did not stop walking, my body felt numb and empty as if I was a mere ghost walking among the living. I reflected on what life meant to me and saw but a spark of light. It was from Florence. She was the only person I loved and the only one that ever returned it back to me. She was my life, the reason I lived, she was the only person that I lived for. She had nut-brown hair that fell back onto her shoulders. Her eyes were green and with but one look they projected her feelings. She was about the same height as me and her laughter. Oh, words could not describe the beautiful echo that it made. 

I remember the summer I met her. She had just moved into my neighborhood in Blue Hills, a town not far from the beach in North Carolina. That day it was 5:00 in the morning when I woke up to a loud bang coming from downstairs in the living room. My mother began to scream at the top of her lungs, though I could not really make out what she was saying. I knew that my parents would fight so this was nothing surprising, just annoying. I felt that it was my duty to keep our family together, and well...alive so I crept down the hardwood steps, though I knew what my body really wanted was to collapse back into bed. As I continued down the stairs, the screams got louder and more fearsome. I remember my hands sweating profusely as if I were waking to the grave. I had often been beaten by my parents for random reasons, but they had never hurt me too harshly though, just to the point that I had some bruises. Honestly, I always felt as if I were a punching bag to them that they just blamed.

I was going to get them a punching bag for Christmas this year actually, just as a joke, but they didn't live till then. Let me continue though, and I'm sure we'll get to that later.

Before I got down the stairs, I was spotted. They hated when I tried to interfere, but I knew that my interfering was the only reason that either of them was still alive, or else they would kill themselves, and me too perhaps. They never gave me any credit though, they didn't want to acknowledge my strengths. I always felt like I wasn't loved, or belonged to this family. They must have loved me once, I would always tell myself. I was probably just too young to remember it. 

The moment that they both turned to see me, my father's face grew crimson in rage. I wanted to say sorry, but that wouldn't change anything, it never did. I think that they just found it embarrassing how polite and much more educated I was compared to them. 

They probably sound like the worst people ever, which is true, but it was only in front of me and when no one was around, which is why I wished there was. Maybe then they wouldn't fight as much and there would be more peace, or so I thought at that time. 

My father, a very tall muscular man grabbed me by the neck, my feet dragged behind me. They said but one thing to me before I received the most brutal beating of my thirteen years of life. 

I woke up later that day in the middle of the living room bleeding, with cuts all over my arm, that my dad and mother had done with a blade they bought from japan, I didn't see them do it all though, I passed out before then, and I’m glad I did. How they all stung and hurt though. I got up and walked slowly to the bathroom, my feet stumbling, as I felt my way there leaning against the wall, delusional. I wrapped an old shirt around my arm after washing the cuts to stop the bleeding when suddenly the doorbell rang. I did not answer it, for I remember how mad my parents got when I answered the door. I answered it but one time before when I got the message that I was to never do it again. The doorbell rang twice and no one answered when I realized that the house was silent, like it rarely was, besides the door bell's sound which echoed through the halls of the large empty house. I was scared...What if it was one of my father's “friends” or partners? I didn't like them, as much as I didn't like my parents. I didn't hate them though, just the fact that they beat me up every time that I was in their presence. I knew by the fourth time that the doorbell rang that it wouldn't help much to stand there stock-still thinking about it, and if it were one of my father's friends, I would get in more trouble if they had to break in. I neared towards the door the fastest that my unsteady legs allowed me to after losing so much blood. When my eyes surprised me. At first, I thought that I was delutioning. Was the beautiful girl at the door an angel coming to claim my soul and take me? My mind wandered thinking about who the girl could be, when it all stopped and I finally reached the glass door, opening it. Her eyes reflected happiness and her smile, love. 

“Hello,” the sweet angel said, “I'm Florence, I brought you and your family cookies. I know that people usually do the opposite when neighbors move in, but we just wanted to meet our neighbors and let them know that we are here and happy to help with anything,” she said in a voice sweeter than sugar. Her smile never vanished, the whole fifteen seconds that I knew her for. I felt a type of light, warm feeling, this was new to me, and I liked it. Her face tilted to the side as her eyes roved over my bandages. Through my peripheral vision, I could see that the blood started to show through the old shirt. Her smile faded slightly, which worried me. I wanted to once again bask in the sunshine that the upward tilt in her lips gave me. Her big green eyes expressed composition and worry even though I was a mere stranger to her. This endeared me to her even more. Her mouth opened, perhaps to inquire further in my injury, but I intercepted her query before it could be voiced, in an effort to bring back that smile that had made me feel happy for the first time that I could remember. Despite never speaking to anyone besides my parents, I felt as if I already knew Florence, from the first time I saw her. It wouldn't be hard to talk to those big beautiful green eyes.

“Don't worry about me, what kind of cookies are those?” I said shifting the subject away from the gruesome truth of my life that I did not want to expose this angel too.

“Ahahaha, well these are nothing but the best cookies that you and your family shall ever have the pleasure in tasting.” She said merrily, as her smile lit the world up once more. “Would you like to try one now, I'm sure that you won't regret it.” Her happiness transferred, as the muscles in my cheeks turned upward in a gesture that my face had not often taken on. 

Now that I look back I wish that I did not get so fascinated and caught up in her beauty, for in the end drawing her closer only brought us more torment. I heard a car pull up in the driveway before I could respond to her. My heart stopped beating, in fear that this pure angel was in harm's way when I saw who was in the black jeep. Though I wish that she could stay longer, I bid the lovely girl goodbye, as she handed me the cookies, as she left willingly, and in my hopefulness, I believe it was, regretfully.

My parents walked in with bags that sounded like pills knocking against each other. I got out of there immediately as I snuck up the stairs, with a book that I had taken off the bookshelf titled Frankenstein. I hid away in my room for several hours, for I knew that all the bags meant another meeting, meant my father’s friends would be over, and how they loved to kick me around as if I were a soulless stuffed animal. At this point it was all just a routine, I didn't feel the shoves of their elbows or the pain of the bruises the kicks left. I felt different that day though. I felt full somehow. The feeling was indescribable from my experience, it was something that I had never really felt before. I had just finished relating to the monster in Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, and how I felt like abandoned creature, who not a single shed of kindness could be speared on, except of course for the angel, when I heard the wood panels creaking as if someone was nearing towards my door. My father burst through the door, his eyes, unlike Florence’s were impure and looked sick as they always had been for as long as I could remember. He never used words, but instead expressed his emotions through violence. I remember vividly being terrified that he would take the book away from me, as he did once before, so I quickly shut it and hid it under my bed. 

“Get down there,” he said in an intoxicated voice, “It's time to clean up. And you better get every drop of it this time, you know what happened last time you left a spot.” I quickly squirmed around, as I filled a bucket with chemicals and disinfectant, making my way down the spiral stairs with a mop in one hand and the bucket in the other. 

The red carpets hid most of the blood that covered the once-white carpet, but the stench was too hard to conceal. My blood was always different. It left a different type of stain that separates me from others. You would think that all blood is the same, but mine glistened in a strange.. When I finished, I went to bed with only Florence on my mind, trying to fall asleep with the bullet shoots that came from our basement in the background. 

Over the weeks Florence and I became closer, I was not able to stay with her for long periods of time like I would like though since I did not want my parents to notice her. 

One day Florence saw through our window a beautiful bookshelf with books, which immediately made her insist on going inside our house that I had never let her do, in fear that my parents would catch her inside. But I could not resist her plea, for her eyes showed so much longing and happiness reflected in them. I gave in, sure that I could protect her from anything that could cause her harm or pain. She entered, amazed by the large collection of books, as I explained that the people who sold the house to us left them as a welcoming gift. The house came alive for the first time, her every glance, erasing the worst of memories from the past. I decided to leave her there for a few seconds as I ran up the stairs and through a hall leading to my room to bring her Frankenstein that I had already finished and realized the true beauty of the story. My intentions were to give the book to her as a present to read and enjoy, just as I had. I left her with no notice because I wanted to surprise her with the gift, but by the time I was about to open the door to my room I saw our car coming back, she was in danger, I thought. I ran through the hall that now seems never-ending, rushed down the stairs, where I saw Florence holding a bag of my mother and father's pills. This terrified me as I signaled to her to come to the stairs where I was and leave the pills there. She saw the horror in my eyes and did not place the pills back to where they had been on the bookshelf in a secret compartment, but instead, probably in fear, dropped the bag as they scattered in all directions and she ran towards me. My parents walked through the door, reflecting anger at the pills that they saw scatter all over the blood carpet. I jumped in front of Florence to protect her, but it wasn’t enough. The bullet went through me. I felt nothing though the bullet was still ringing in my ear. Florence fell to the ground, as I turned to hug her. My parents just stood there, neither amazed or confused. I remember her last words. They were so sweet, it did not help cure the pain I felt at that moment though. I had felt pain my whole life, nothing but pain and sorrow, and then she came. She introduced something that was different, something I had never felt before. It was warm, sweet, beautiful. She called it love, but I will forever call it Florence, for It would never be possible without her. 

She said, still smiling, though I know in pain, “We will meet again dear one.” She stopped, unable to speak trying to hold in the pain and not to show it, as she closed her eyes for the last time.

She was still in my arms on the stairs, I didn't want to let her go, but I was angry so I did what I thought I should have always done from the beginning, and killed them both with the gun that they had ended so many innocent lives.

That is how I ended up here, a walking corpse in the woods. I am convinced that I am unable to live without my Florence that held the key to my heart. I continued walking, never stopping, when suddenly there was a movement in the thickets, as the leaves rustled restlessly when a strange woman appeared. She began to smile when she noticed me as if she had been expecting me and knew everything about me. I did not talk to her the whole time I was in her presence for it had not seemed necessary, it was as if she already knew all. She understood me. I stayed with her in a hut for one night before she made me leave, convinced that I would one day find happiness, though I knew it was not likely without Florence in this world. I felt a connection with the old woman. She said that we knew each other, I am unsure how though. She felt warm and like an actual family to me though. I have been thinking about it and realized that I have blamed myself for Florence's death, which had got me thinking. How was it possible for a bullet to go through me, My blood to be different, Myself being able to survive so many cruel beatings. The old woman did not have to explain this to me, I had to just glance into her eyes to understand what she was explaining to me, and that was when I finally pieced my life together, and realized how different I was like I had always expected, and thought. I was a person in between a ghost, I was always like that, and the people I called my parents weren't my parents, they were horrible people as I found out from the woman, that was my grandma. I remember her exact words.

“Those people you lived with, they might have called themselves your parents, but they were not. Your parents were better. They were beautiful.” a tear rolled down her cheek, “and they loved you very much before those monsters came in and destroyed them and took you.”

What she said really stuck to me and made me wish I knew them. But I'm glad that It didn't go that way because then I would have never met my Florence. I wandered the dark damp forest for days, hungry yet unable to eat, for I was in the depths of despair. 

One day as I was about to fall to the ground, where I believed I would die and disintegrate, I wandered into a meadow that suddenly made me feel different. The meadow was full of daisies in all directions, looking as if there was no end to its beauty or scent, when suddenly A sycamore tree, that looked like life itself, appeared in the corner of my eye. I felt as if it represented all good in life...love, happiness, but wait...there was something, someone in it. I rubbed my eyes as I got closer. It was a girl who was sitting on a branch that curved downward like a bench. The girl was bright and warm like the sun. When I finally reached the girl, I looked up at her, and finally realized that I was free and in heaven, for now, I reunited with my one and only symbol of love and all synonyms and definitions of kindness, Florence.