• A Blackbird's Serenade •

"Don't They Know, It's The End of The World"

~ One Month Later ~

Omniscient

Depression...Desolation...Dejection.....

Motivation, to live, to care, to feel, finds itself lost, somewhere along with hope and the mere thought of happiness. Days blur into endless misery, rendering a reflection in the mirror unrecognizable, eyes nothing but pools darkened with an unfillable void. Time escapes lifeless fingertips that hadn't stood a chance of holding on anyway. The world spins, yet stands eerily still, all at once.

It creeps in, only needing the smallest crack of access to grow, and holds a residence that seems formidably permanent.

It knows no mercy. No light.

The mind is trapped, screaming underwater, bound by chains within an overwhelming darkness. Simple wants and basic needs are silenced, consumed by a distinct paralysis. Sleep is hard to come by, even after hours in bed. Thoughts turn to poison, spreading like a disease to where no option seems any better than the other.

It's an endless fall, having the sense of panic and anxiety appear to carry on forever. It's a ruthless drowning, with limbs giving up on trying as an anchor grasps onto an ankle, forcing the acceptance of the drag downward. It's a resigning mind and a tired soul...depleting the body's desire to even reach out any longer.

To want to hold on...

It was not just sadness. No, it was to be beyond hopeless, and beyond empty.

It knocked at the back doors of her mind often, but she persisted in overcoming it. In not letting it win, in ignoring it, and not letting it take control of her. Of her life...

Although now, Journee could feel herself losing the battle. She could feel the black ink rising from her fingertips, attempting to overtake her body until she was swallowed whole, leaving her numb down to her every bodily cell. And at this point, she felt helpless to put up any more fight. Helpless to stop it.

I'm tired... The singer thought. She'd lost track of what state they were in now, only knowing that it was somewhere in the West, across the country from Atlanta.

Across the country from home...from Tiana...

She hardly had the energy to even put on the mask she'd wear when offstage, to convince all the others that she was just fine. She hardly had the energy to even fake it anymore. She no longer cared if they could see just how empty she felt inside. She no longer cared about what they'd think or say.

Tiana had left her, yes, but she could hardly blame the woman for the depth of this current state of mind.

No, this was years of pain. Years of grief, and of emotionally compartmentalizing, all surfacing at once. It was everything.

The weight of being the oldest, then being relieved of her duties in the most gut wrenching way. The color and shade of her skin, and her gender, being constantly used against her like a built in weapon. Her father abusing her mother, abusing her, then just leaving them all simply because he could. It was her first boyfriend nearly raping her, stripping her of the romantic stories she'd heard about how special a first-time was to a woman. It was James using her as an object, in more ways than one. Her only friend having ever been Franklin because everyone else had either done her wrong or betrayed her, or left her. The fact that she never finished school, and that she never thought herself smart enough to even consider college. It was her loneliness and her grief, two things of which she could never seem to escape.

Two things that were killing her softly, and slowly...

It was all of it. All at once, and all pounding at her back door. Furiously, mercilessly, and relentlessly... It wasn't showing signs of giving up and going away, and she was finding it harder each day to ignore it. To fight it off...