Rise
by xvestigex
I never could truly figure out what this was supposed to be about. I imagine it's more about Ginny, and how things might have turned out if she couldn't handle what happened with Harry. Well, read on.
The floor was littered with library books; "Kissing The Witch," "Wasteland." This girl liked to read. The bed is pale lavendar silk, unmade and scattered with ten pillows, shag pillow, heart shaped, fuzzy, shining with purple tiny strands of iridescence. Tiny dots of silver applique swirled on the comforter, on a throw pillow, in a pattern of dizzying brightness, no pattern, indistinguishable, that she watched, that her slowly dying mind let her see at night as she lay in total darkness to watch the silver swirl in her mind, her eyes, she could see it so it was real. The dresser is littered with wild cherry lipgloss and dangling star earrings and vanilla plum lotions. Six different brushes across the top, an open plastic organizing box filled with necklaces and chains, bracelets and pendants from a mother that meant the world to her little girl. A flash of silver, nothing out of place, it's a jewlery box right? Drawers with clothes, one with pale colored shirts, untouched and a drawer full of dark clothes, black shirts and red tanktops and star-studded belts. Heavy black shoes with red anarchy signs. Tight jeans, chained wallets and some kind of pants-straps. Everything is mussed and worn in that drawer. The brightness and goodness untouched, the silence and suffering is all she knew. Dully sharpened black pencils, to line her once bright eyes. In her more recent pictures, though, all you saw was emptiness, a hunger and a longing for the love and hurt and pain and happiness that she couldn't find, she wanted but she didn't know, what was it and where to find it? A once bright ocean turned empty and quiet, a practiced silence hiding her eyes. She didn't want to see herself in the mirror anymore; all she wanted anymore was the inexplicable shade of red.
A black bound book, thick leather cover and creamy blank pages. Paper shreds in the spiral binding, what wasn't good enough that she had to rip out and throw away? Depicting a man and a woman surrounded by rose thorns. Naked, it evoked passion inside a person. They were bare and interwined with each other, connected. It was rough and painful and primeval. It was like that with her, it was love and it was pain. Opposite but she couldn't have one without the other, she didn't know why but she was trying to know, although by the time anyone noticed her falling it was too late to help.
Three tierd drawers on the marred, solid oaken dresser top. Cheap white plastic with lines of unused bottles of smells, Tropical Paradise, Morning Glory, In The Rain. The top drawer with pastel shadows and glosses, these things were never used. Concealer sticks and blushes, she never touched it it seemed. The next drawer, extra shoelaces, extra buttons, strings, in the back were mixtapes. Mixtapes, with childish love songs from first year, second year, peeling labels with illegible titles in beginner's cursive. The next drawer, the bottom, neon school dividers, boldly offensive Crayola markers, and at the bottom, two books. One light blue, a spinoff on the stupidity of boys. The next dark and the front busy with images. The first one is happy; basic life, filled with witty banter and simple easy problems, my test grades, oh no he dumped her. Gradually you see her falling, less and less is written about life, like she doesn't want to share, and more and more is said about death. The answer to why she did it won't be found here.
The recent one is busy and black and gray with red highlights, drawn on with watercolor pencil. Stand out. On the cover, "Dying is an art, like everything else, I do it exceptionally well." A woman's high-heeled feet in the mirror, the middle of the mirror, suspended. Swirling blood in clear clean water, tainting it, A Red Rain Shall Fall. The writing inside is bold and rushed, angry letters, words across the page to serve as warning. Don't come near me, if you have to don't touch me, if you touch me don't hurt me, if you hurt me I'll hurt you, because I love you, love you, love love love with everything she is. Reading on, he could never see that. He never saw that he was all she knew, all she wanted and all she needed, and he threw her away. She'd never believed in drugs and alcohol to solve problems but when he left it didn't matter anymore, it had to stop, stop stop he's the voice inside her head, get out of my head.
That sparkle in the jewelry box is a razor, from that empty eyeliner sharpener, next to the tiny screw and the empty little plastic casing. How many times had she dragged the blade across the pure scar tissue of her wrist just to feel the snapping of flesh, and to see the blood and feel sane? The blood, if you look it's everywhere. That huge dark puddle on her already dark violet carpet, on the lightswitch, the doorknob and the lamp. The controls on her stereo. It's on her pillows and her sheets and it's splattered on the wall, screaming red drops of will you notice now? The mirror is smeared with dark dark dark, layers of blood, the window where she finally fell, handprints dragging down down, down the white wall where she fell to the floor. The darkest place on the carpet where she had lain, the whispers of dying breath, where she had no strength to crawl away, not that she minded, where she watched the stars out staring up through her window, where her eyes fluttered shut for one last time, her lips blood red from kissing her wounds, two streaks down her face where hot tears burned their path. Her wish has come true, never again will she open her eyes, to face the sky. She had to make it stop, the truth and the lies and the pain of taking a breath and his voice inside her head.
They can't find the answers and they never will. Every one of them knows this, as they search gingerly through her things, placing each back where they found it. Why would she do this, they thought. Future, hope, chances, she could have gotten better. Say something, why didn't she ask for help? She was too strong to ask for help. Crying out with drugs, drinking, slashing herself, get away get away, really meant help. They never looked though, except to glance and say, yes she does well in school, she's such a good child, we're very close to her. When really, they weren't close at all and they were farther away than oceans and seas, continents of lost souls who couldn't find a way. She knows they can't find the answers, as she watches them mourn the death of a girl they never knew. The sob and cry, they loved her so and she watches and thinks, you didn't know me. You never helped, you didn't hear me scream. They'll never find the answer they want so desperately, the answer they need to fully close this blood spattered door, and she knows this, and she laughs.