Closed Eyes

I was only 14 years old.

I woke up every morning only to look in the mirror and see my abuser staring back at me.

I walked into school with my head held high but I was walking on paper ground.
I leapt too fast and fell right to rock bottom.

I shouted out for help because I was drowning in the obscenities my mind was spitting at me.
I was suffocating and gasping for air with my own two hands around my neck.

I was in the middle of the ocean being pulled down under begging you to take me to shore,
but you couldn't hear me,
you were so far away that my deafening screams of silence were nothing but a whisper.

My lungs filled with the toxic air of despair,
my heart and faith were desperate.

I no longer felt lost.
Being lost means there is hope you can be found,
no one could find me then because I couldn't even find myself.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I saw in one hand a bottle of pills and the other a glass of water.

one,
two,
three,
four,
five,
six,
seven,
eight,
nine,
ten,
eleven,
twelve,
thirteen,
fourteen pills.

I could feel my head going numb with
the tingling sensation of artificial air, letting me breathe in an ocean of misery.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was in the front seat of my mom's SUV as she screamed at the red light.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them a nurse was placing stickers with wires on my chest.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them there was an IV in my left arm.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I wished I had kept them closed.

They told me I couldn't go home.
Home?
Where is home?

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was in an ambulance.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was trapped by four white walls and an open door.

I closed my eyes again because you can't cry with your eyes closed.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was still only 14 years old.

- a.h.