Well, then, here's a one shot for all of you. Tell me what you think, good or bad.
Basically, read & review!
A Blue Birds Cry
I close my eyes and lean my head against the whitewash wall. This is a room where someone with real problems should be. Instead, I am here, wondering if I do have a problem, although I know I don't.
My head hurts, like someone brought a bat to my head. My throat is dry enough I can feel the sides rubbing against each other. My eyes burn as though I have a cold or the flu. I am sick to my stomach like I've eaten something rotten, despite that I haven't eaten in days. My lips are chapped and cracked, feeling like leather.
I don't have a problem, I don't have an addiction.
But there is something else that weighs me down, and makes the pain keep coming back.
-x-
It began simple and slow; I was scared the first time.
"One time will never kill you."
My hands shook enough to compare to an earthquake, and yet, they still grasped onto the small plastic bag.
"Here, I'll go first."
I watched her inhale the powder through her nose. She scrunched her face and leaned back.
"Go on."
My heart raced, and my breathing had been reduced to simply quick, sharp intakes.
"Hey, c'mon. Look, I'm still alive, and I've done this stuff a million times."
I leaned forward to imitate her actions as I took in the white grind. It hurt, burning my nose and hurting my head as it went up. I must have made a face because she began to laugh.
"Yeah, it hurts, but it's worth it."
Two years ago I was innocent; I was free from anyone's rule. She was my best friend, and we both knew I couldn't say no. But eventually, as always, we weren't best friends anymore.
I had a new best friend.
-x-
I want a visitor one of these days.
There's another girl that gets her boyfriend to come in, and once he tried to sneak her in something I couldn't see. But the mediwitch catches him and throws him out.
He comes back a few days later, and now he brings her a flower. When he leaves, she pulls something out of it, and we all know what it is.
Another girl has a friend come in sometimes. They both squeal and jump on each other with hugs. They never shut up, but at the same time I'm jealous that I no longer have any friends to talk to. The girl is hollow looking, and I can see all her bones. I'm not sure if she doesn't like to eat or if she enjoys vomiting it all up.
Other girls have visitors; there are girls with ratted hair, girls with too many visible bones, girls that appear so mad that I look normal. When they shut us all up in here together, it makes me wonder about the men or if men have problems like us.
Sometimes I wonder what these girls were like before they had problems, before they were locked in a white room with no windows or hope. I believe that the white walls scare everyone in here. Even in the darkness, they are bright. They keep me from sleeping. I have gone nearly two days without being able to fully sleep again.
I never knew that white walls could be so frightening.
Once I am out of here, I will never ever paint any walls in my home white. However, that is in optimism that I do get out of here, alive.
-x-
I loved a boy once in my life. Now he is no longer a boy, now he is a man.
He loved me, a girl, once. Now I am a young woman, but just barely.
He was handsome enough to the point where you couldn't believe how lucky you were. He didn't do drugs, like me, but he drank like a fiend. Now that I think about it, his kiss could have been lethal.
They always said never to drink and do drugs.
-x-
One girl cries herself to sleep every night. I take it back; she shrieks herself to sleep. Then again, it is her first week.
I stare up at the glowing ceiling, wondering what other person lay in this bed and had slept peacefully. Why am I unable? It has been difficult for some time now.
The first few nights were the worst. I cried every night, softly enough for a few to feel sympathetic. Every day was a battle for me. I faced weariness to such an extreme I would pass out. I sweated enough to ruin my clothes for the day. My body ached as my body fell into a series of convulsions.
I need it. I need it. I need it.
It was all I could think about. It didn't matter that it only felt good for under an hour. If I took it again, I would get higher, and higher, and higher.
I could touch the sky.
But every time I fell harder.
-x-
Today, I cried all day. I curled up in a ball, all my bones tucked in. I couldn't help it.
I need it, I need it.
It was all I needed to survive.
I cried so much my chest hurt enough for my ribs to feel like they were being crushed into my organs. I began to cough hard enough that I spit up blood all over my white sheets. A mediwitch cleaned them up, and had a doctor come to check up on me. He said I was fine and force feeding me a potion that only made my throat burn more.
I didn't believe him.
-x-
It has been a few months since I've been in the real world. Counting the days is too tedious for me, and would only make me more depressed. It's got to be March, the snow will start to melt, and my birthday will grow closer. Maybe as a present I will ask them to paint the walls another color if they won't let me outside.
This place is worse than Azkaban, from what I've heard. It sounds horrible for a living set of bones to suck the life out of you, but then again, white walls are doing the same to me.
When I first came, a mediwitch shook her head and asked me why such a pretty girl would ruin her life. I punched her jaw, hard enough even I knew it was jarring. They gave me muscle relaxers for that. But only the first time.
-x-
The girl with the drug dealer boyfriend gets caught again. She is no longer allowed to have visitors. Then, she begins to bawl her eyes out for eight hours.
I can't decide if she's crying over the lack of her boyfriend or the crystal meth.
-x-
My nineteenth birthday draws nearer and nearer. Nothing these mediwitches do help. They want me to stay in here forever.
One day, the nurses should switch with the patients. Maybe I would give all of them muscle relaxers and bad, frozen food, too. Then they would get to feel like what it's like to be an addict, an anorexic, or schizophrenic.
Maybe they'd realize we have no choice.
It's doesn't matter what drug you take, what choices you make; you're the enemy, and the mediwitches are just trying to due society a job of sweeping up the bad people to make them fit for society. Unless you've faced what we do, you don't understand.
The person isn't the enemy, the drug isn't the enemy. There's something else, something that triggered it all to spiral down to an unfathomable pit. And even if you hit that bottom, it's not like you could get back up. You can't even see the sun, not a ray of light, or hope.
There's always something to start it all.
-x-
I try not to think about it. I try my hardest. But sometimes, it's just not cutting it.
Speaking of cutting, the new girl, that's what she does. I talked to her earlier in the day, and she told me how her ex had raped her. Her eyes were wide with something more psychotic than excitement. She whispers all the time, and scratches her arm a lot. Sometimes she shrieks out of nowhere.
She doesn't cry anymore, now she just gives all the nurses a malign look; we all know it makes them cringe.
The meth addict went overboard today. She attacked a nurse and eventually they had to bring a few of the other mediwitches and wizards in to get her under control. They took her out of the room, and I don't think we're going to see her again.
But we all know that she's not getting out.
-x-
I met with a therapist today. She asks me lots of questions, but I don't know any of the answers. It's like high school all over again. At least I'm not in uniform.
She's a pretty, young woman, older than me of course. She asks me why I started, how I expect to get out of here, and so on. The woman shakes her head in disappointment at me again. I curl my hand in a fist, and I think of the meth addict.
When my time is up, I stand with the mediwitch by my side. I look at the nurse and I turn to the therapist, and imitate her disposition of frustration. She quickly scribbles something done as I leave.
The mental ward is quite different from the rest of St. Mungo's. It's cut off; you can't get in unless you're a visitor or an employee. It's not like a regular hospital, where you can wonder and look at other people's despair. Maybe they're just saving us the embarrassment.
-x-
My birthday is tomorrow. I don't want to be nineteen. I don't want to be in this place. I want to be home; I want him with me.
I have been here for four months. Some girls have been here for over a year. But shouldn't magic be able to help you with your problems?
Isn't there a spell to cure you of an addiction? Isn't there a spell to make you gain weight? Isn't there a potion to restore your sanity?
It's more than all of that, though. Even if you get rid of the physical addiction, your mind will still need it, it will tell you to go get some more. Get high, never come down. If you gain the weight back, that's just a reason to start it all up again, to throw it all up or to stop eating. And your sanity was restored, then you'd go crazy again, finally being able to see things the way others see them.
It's one of those things; written down, it's absolutely brilliant. But once you put it into action and there's no turning back, you realize you've fucked everything up.
-x-
I lay in bed hours after everyone had eaten breakfast. I am nineteen years of age. I am a cocaine addict. I am stuck in a mental ward. And yet, it still isn't the worst birthday I've had. What could make it the worst?
If he doesn't come to see me. He should apologize, he should explain; hell, he should talk to me. I miss him. I need him.
And all of a sudden, I sit up straight. Upright like a board, and all those foggy years of confusion are clear. I am seeing things the way I never have. And I turn to vomit over the side of my bed.
I never figured out what my trigger was, like for one girl, she was raped. For another, her father beat her. And one girl, her modeling agency told her to lose more inches off her waist.
He was my trigger. I loved the way I felt when he touched me when I was flying; I thought I wouldn't be able to feel it when I was on the ground. I was too scared, as always.
My skin has goose bumps all over. I am freezing; I am no longer numb. The mediwitch scolds me and takes out her wand to clean up the mess.
I don't know what I was thinking, but I did what I had always wanted to do. I stood up, and I punched her right in the face. A few more of the mediwitches and wizards ran it, and I punched the woman again. I didn't want her to clean up my mess. It was mine, anyway.
I didn't do anything as they put their unnecessary spells on me. I must've blacked out, because then I found myself in a new room, alone.
I take back what I said; I don't want to see him right now.
-x-
The therapist comes to visit me the next morning in my new room. She asks me if I had a good birthday, and I raise an eyebrow and scoff. She asks me why I attacked the mediwitch.
To make things clear, I haven't spoken a word to her since I've gotten here. But now, I look her straight on with narrowed eyes.
"If I really wanted to be a lazy ass, and have some stupid woman clean up my mess that I've created, and I've mounded, then I'd be sitting in that old bed right now. I'd be crying because he didn't come and that I am in here when I really don't have an issue. I'd be sitting there with the addicts and the anorexics and the – the other crazy girls. I'd have some woman I don't know try to fix my life. I don't want that. I never did."
The analyst smiles. She doesn't write anything down.
"I had faith in you, Mae. I really did."
"You're not like that other nurse who complained on my first day, are you?"
She tilts her head to the side. "What did that nurse say?"
"She asked me why such a pretty girl fucked up her life with cocaine."
The therapist chuckles. "Did she really say that?"
"It's what I translated it to be."
We are silent for a while, staring at each other.
"Who is this boy you wanted to visit you?" she finally asks.
"My boyfr – ex-boyfriend."
"Was he the one who put you in here?"
"No."
"Who did?"
"I have no idea."
"If you knew who did, what would you say?"
"I'd tell them to fuck off, and that I can control my own fucking problems."
She looks at the clock, and begins to pack up. The colorless walls absorb me back into their vacancy.
"How much longer do I have to stay here?" I ask the question that's been on my mind ever since I realized it would be a while.
The shrink smiles furtively, and says, "They're you own problems. Your own decisions. It's all up to you."
She closes the door behind her. How am I supposed to fix my own problems when they have witches and wizards to clean up every little spec I make?
-x-
It takes a while, but after over a week, I am back in the quarters with the other girls. They don't talk to me anymore, keeping their mad thoughts to themselves. The silence leaves me space to think beneath my sheets.
It always hurt, no matter how many times I used it, how many months. It always burned. I never became accustomed, like she said I would. After a steady use, my weight dropped by ten pounds, then another five, and another, and another.
Unlike most girls, that wasn't my intent. It was to get rid of everything, throw it all away. I was sick of the usual, sick of the familiarized. I needed something.
For a while, I believed that cocaine was the something I needed. Soon after, he came around, and the drug was in the past. I wasn't under its control yet, it didn't dominate. He did.
He will never come to see me. He was ashamed to hear of it, actually. Hypocrite; I never met a man who drank more than Sirius Black even if I did love him. He complained of my drug abuse, why, shouldn't I get to throw him in here too for stumbling home drunk every night? It was very simple, but still, it was my trigger. I loved him, but he wasn't perfect, even to me.
And soon enough, it became apart of my life again.
-x-
The spring comes towards an end; some girls leave, some girls stay. I am the only constant in the room for now. The attendants still don't trust me, and so far, I've stopped talking once more.
It's unhealthy to inside for too long, I believe. Slower and slower, I'm becoming immune to the hypnosis of the walls. It runs less and less through my mind that I want him to visit me, see what I'm going through.
In fact, it makes me realize that I never needed it. I may have wanted it at some points, but I always needed him when he couldn't be with me.
I'm sure he's moved on now, forgotten about. A nice little anecdote to tell girl number two thousand seventy six. What he doesn't understand is that everything with him had been a preamble, the beginning, the trigger to everything that I will start in five days, counting.
It will be the beginning of my life.
-x-
On my last day, I apologize to the mediwitches I punched, but coldly, and sarcastically. I pull on my winter jacket that I had been wearing when they rolled me in here on a gurney. I take a deep breath before I take my first step into the real world for six months, half a year.
I stand there in the lobby, people rushing, people waiting. I wonder if I am truly ready for this. But here came the ultimate test.
Could I do it? Would I be able to breathe on the other side and not need his existence, its existence? The only way I would be able to know is to push that door open and take my real first breath and continue life.
So I went on to do it.
I will tell you one thing, however. My initial breath is the most beautiful feeling in the world, so much it doesn't make me lament my past actions because I can appreciate it.
But now, I don't stop. I take my steps fast, and I never stop. After all, I have a lot to catch up on, and a lot to run away from.
Mhm, just a quick A/N, I wanted it to be kinda choppy and at parts, a little repetitive. Thanks for reading!