"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.
They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."
... Stephen King

She couldn't recall where she was on a night blessed by rain so pure that it caused the wilted flowers to
rise on their toes in excitement, and her to wither into depression. The night was a lightning-show of
blue-white flash from a thousand cloud cameras. And the gravel beneath her feet was simply the
degraded souls that she had slaughtered on nights before, torn from her spine like vertebrae and left to tot until they mirrored the hollow she carried inside.

::the rain could never wash away::
::the smell of her skin-cense::

And, today was no different. So, she drowned herself in black rose petals and broken glass, just so she
could suffer in beautiful elegance. The freckles on her shoulders were the pinprick memories she
insisted on forgetting, the forever-after tally-mark scars documenting how often she was horrid.

::millions::

of gold flecks in her eyes, because secretly, she's always been a bit of a gold-digger and it's just her
soul's way of showing her true colors; gold-diggers and mysterious blue marbles that quiver in the light
of the rising sun with her pupils dilating into ink-black agony. And the sound of her heart vibrating in
her ears with that horrible, hiccupping rhythm she had grown to hate causes her to shake in an anxious anticipation.

::and it means nothing::
::it couldn't possibly::

She lives in her memories, torn at the edges of the filmstrip clubs and ***** little secrets that she forces
between her lips. A kiss. She’s such a . . .

::faded thought::

Lost in translation. She’s (a) patient with her medication calling home in the middle of the night to say
she missed you. But, never as much as you missed her mind.

::and she's quite queer::

Dangling Star of Davids and Pentagrams from her collarbone
A set of rosary beads clenched in her pocket
Trying to cast out the demons
Trying to cast new actors for this endless play
A play she couldn’t stop rehearsing

::act(ing) natural::

Because it's much easier to smile
Than to explain those dreaded tears
Falling off her face (of the earth)

::she falls (fails)::

And withers once more, a tumbleweed who is far too fragile
who could resist
trying to break her
I never could.

©️ Dark Water Diaries