not okay {ziam}

thirteen

{thirteen}

before you what

-

i'm not quite sure if i can feel my hands, even as i wiggle my fingers, i'm certain there's nothing pumping through my bloodstream at this very moment in time. a spike of adrenaline, maybe, rushing up the back of my skull and keeping me from falling onto the bones of my knees. but, all i can see are red faces. shedding tears in the hallway, bodies convulsing and quivering with the disruption and wet pleas of demand. looking for any answers to what it feels like to lose someone so suddenly and horrifically.

my footsteps tap down the corridor as i blink away at the mist adorning my eyes, needing to find an escape, needing an exit and air. i need fresh air.

as i flicker my lashes open, suddenly my body collides with a shoulder so soft it awes me. it's so awfully familiar, even the sweet scent and the shoes of the passerby have me staggering backwards. white converse scribbled on with black ink, the long trail of her golden legs, my vision begins to roam up to the girl's face and immediately my body is engulfed in ice. like i've been sweating under a layer of dry desert heat and miraculously, a shower of summer rain sprinkles across the sky. the sandy depths of her hair, the elegant pools of her eyes — she's smiling at me, her fingers curled around her backpack in such a promiscuous way. her skin glows and her cheeks are so wide and rosey, inviting me into her warmth. she's so perfect and tender, like a flushed rose in the hot breeze, swaying in the wind with her free petals. they fly past me, brushing past the flesh of my shoulders with a gentle embrace and a playfulness that can't be disguised.

"mandy?" i breathe out, fluttering my eyes until i realize -- i'm standing in front of someone entirely different.

the shimmer of the sunlight is stripped from me and i'm pulled back by an anchor of reality, as a troubled girl stares at me as if i had grown a second head. she lets her thin lips gape with puzzlement, quickly deciding to step away and walk in the other direction. her black hair cascading down her back, like petite shadows of refusal.

immediately, my numb hands rush towards my hair, pulling and pulling until my mind feels clear enough to continue. but i'm drowning, in the fluid swimming inside of my brain clouding my vision with it's murky darkness. i find myself sinking into the pond that sits in the outskirts of this miserable town, surrounded by pine trees and silence. trying desperately to search for the surface, thrashing as my body descends further into the cloudy water. i feel cold fingers wrap around my ankles, tugging on me until my lungs suffocate and i can taste the bitter metallic of blood on my tongue.

my body shakes as i shove my way through the exit, gasping and trying to stop the slow motion of time.

it's the smell that brings me back to reality. the strong, musky scent of a silly drug that a special girl once loved dearly. it hits the back of my throat, as my eyes flicker from the pavement to a relentless boy sitting across the gates surrounding our school with a thinly wrapped joint in-between his fingers. patrick smokes hash alongside his pierced and tattooed friends in the icy breeze of autumn, talking briefly to one another as if the world hadn't just collapsed right in the palms of his hands. he stares up at nothing in particular, lets his eyes trail down towards the littered cement and inhales deeply with the filter between his furrowed lips. the hoards of boys surrounding him look as lifeless as the grim sky, the blackness under their eyes and the paleness of their lips so unquestionably distant.

and i'm angry, so fucking angry at the sight. rattling like a engine pipe, overheating and losing control of my stature. i think i might truly be bleeding inside of my mouth from the way my teeth are gnawing into my gums, but i can't stop myself as i march forward. my fists are trembling at the pierce of my nails in my sweaty palms. yet, i can't slow myself down, i can't take a step back, i can't control myself from entering his space. crazed and mad and boiling on what feels like frenzied trauma -- something so cataclysmic and abrasive that the ground below is rumbling.