fifteen blows to the back of your head
it's always best when the light is off. violet/leah.
it's always best when the light is off
it's always better on the outside
;
she closes her eyes and there's blood on the floor. she closes her eyes to sleep, but she can't, and there's blood on her cheek, blood in her hair, it's dripping down her face and she can feel it, warm. she closes her eyes to sleep but she can never sleep and she takes to picturing blonde hair and blood, mixed together, arms pushing her down to the floor, biting.
;
her voice is hoarse. the other girl's voice is lighter, sarcastic, mean. she likes the way it sounds. it keeps her sane, keeps her holding onto something. it feels real. her hair starts turning silver at the roots. she starts hanging out at a skate park and talking about the devil. she cuts off contact with everyone else. she focuses on the girl whose voice keeps her sane. smoke blows out from between her lips. she listens to her voice.
;
she can't stand to do anything anymore. everything scares her and she ruffles the pages of the bible, turns them again and again, sees if she can cure herself with crosses and sleeping pills and whispered prayers of, please, i, please-
her parents don't ask. no one ever asks. no one except for the other girl with the blonde hair and the blood and the voice-
that hat doesn't look like you, she says, and leah thinks, yes, no, it doesn't, it looks like you and i want to be you, i need to be you, i want to bury myself inside you and never come out, i want to see if you bleed the same way i did, across your basement floor-
;
she asks for her pills. she has to stop herself from saying, you can have anything, i'll give you anything.
(please, i-)
;
the other girl stops coming to school and she ditches the second half of the day because she keeps looking for her and she's never there. she lights a cigarette and thinks about the way the devil had looked, painted in ink. the smoke is bitter in her mouth and she coughs it out. it feels like she's dying. half of the time she thinks she is dying, just very, very slowly. she thinks about the way violet's hair falls in her face, the way she crosses her legs, the way she looks at her with trepidation. the devil is in the back of her eyelids but violet's there too. she wonders what that means.
;
she has nightmares every fucking night. she wakes up screaming. she has dreams where violet is staring at her, where she turns and smiles at her. not a real smile, just the corners of her lips turned up.
she wakes up scared.
;
fin.
;