A Little Fall of Rain
Now don't you fret, I don't feel any pain
I've always had the nightmares. Ever since it happened. Even when I was awake, I had to make sure I wasn't thinking of nothing for too long or else it started to play over in my mind. Always in slow motion. I could see them clear as day walking along with me, laughing with me, up that hill. The Church bells still echoing over the valley. Me, reciting… something. I can't even remember what it was anymore. A prayer. I think.
A little fall of rain
We take the laughter of innocent children for granted. We take the lives of those who matter to us for granted. We take our homes, our friends, our families, everything for granted. And never more so than on a bright afternoon when we're laughing and playing. We never pause to consider the fact that it could all change in a split second. That in the mere blink of an eye we could be robbed of that innocent laughter and everything we have ever known or cared about. One minute, you're a child playing on a hillside. The next, you're a petrified statue covered in blood and crying over a pair of corpses.
Can hardly hurt me now
That's exactly how everything changed for me. I could never forget the way the shots seemed to echo out over the valley. Even after so many years it made me cry to remember my own desperate pleas for them to wake up. I remembered all too well them staring lifelessly back at me, unblinking, unmoving, their last moment of terror and pain forever etched in their eyes. I closed my own eyes to try to block out the image but that only made it more vivid, more real. I would often catch myself muttering 'sorry' over and over, as though my seven-year-old self could have done anything to stop it.
You're here; that's all I need to know
Sometimes I even found myself wondering; what if I had already Awakened when it happened? A silly question of course. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't my fault. That I was still allowed to live even though they didn't. If you've had to live with anguish like that, you already know how it feels. If you haven't, then you can't possibly imagine it. It ends up consuming every moment of your life. Either you're trying endlessly to imagine ways you could have prevented it, or else you spend every waking second imagining that you're going to wreak revenge or something. It's a horrible way to live. No one should have to live like that. Least of all a small child.
And you will keep me safe
And then, add to that being snuck away in the dead of night and dragged to a place halfway across the world. You're already scared, and you have to pack as much stuff as you can carry and go to a place you can't even pronounce the name of, where they speak a funny language. You're traumatised by what has happened, sure, but you were still at home. You still had the familiar to be able to cling to. But even that's being taken away from you. You don't even get to stay for the funeral. Just, one day you're surrounded by everything you know and always have known and the next you're being whisked out of the country and you're too young to really understand what's going on or why.
And you will keep me close
I know what you're probably thinking. But that was years ago. I was a child. Shouldn't I have gotten over it by now? But the thing is, something like that? You can't just get over it. You never get over it. You never stop missing them. I'd even thought of joining them, countless times. Sometimes the only thing that kept me going was telling myself they're still there somehow, watching me. I'd wonder if they'd be proud of me, or if they'd disown me without a second thought. I hoped they'd be proud of me, but I could never stop wondering either way. See, when a person is alive and you want to know what they think of you, you can ask them. They might tell the truth or they might lie, but at least they'll tell you something. But someone who has been dead can't answer, so you're left wondering. And in some ways that's worse than being outright disowned.
And rain will help the flowers grow
By now I'll bet you're wondering where I'm going with all this. Well, can you hear the people crying in the next room? They're crying because of a bunch of things I did. Twenty three years of living with the nightmares and the anguish and the guilt. Fifteen years of knowing I was living on borrowed time. Ten years of keeping secrets that could have gotten me killed. Nearly five years of trying to live up to an ideal I could never meet. And I mean, really trying. Pouring my heart and soul into it. Using it as an outlet for the pain. Using it as a reason to keep going. Twelve months of watching helplessly as everything I cared about was ripped away from me, piece by fucking piece. All these things I did until I couldn't do them anymore, and it's what I did next that's making them cry.
Just hold me now and let it be
Funny. They were always quick to brush me aside and dismiss me when I was alive. Don't pay attention to her, they said. She's probably just drunk again, they said. She's not a true Arrow. She's a psychopath. She's always like this. None of them ever paused to ask why. None of them cared when it mattered. But it was being told I wasn't an Arrow that really hurt. Close your eyes for a minute and think of the thing that is the most important to you in the entire world. So important it fuels your very existence. It keeps you going no matter how bad things get. It gives you something to aspire to. Now imagine someone you look up to, who knows how important that thing is to you, ripping it up in your face. Stings, doesn't it? Now imagine them declaring that you have no right to be upset. When you're already drowning, that's like someone lying on top of you to make sure you can't surface for air. You lose the will to fight for your life very quickly when that happens. Suddenly you don't care anymore. About anything or anybody. But now they have the gall to say they mourn when they couldn't honestly care less.
Shelter me. Comfort me
Someone suggested I should see what my life would be like if I hadn't, you know, Awakened. They meant well. They couldn't possibly understand though. I wouldn't have lived through twenty three years of ever-increasing heartbreak if magic wasn't a part of my life. I'd be forever that innocent, laughing little girl. I'd be happy. If I could give up my magic to be able to go back to that, I would have. In a heartbeat. I wouldn't even have to think about it. And yes, I'm well aware that means I would have been killed that day too. Honestly, I think I would have been better off.
A breath away from where you are
Part of me hoped that someone would notice. That someone would care enough to confront me and force me to stop. A few people tried. A few decent people realised what I was up to. But none of the people I wanted to try, did. I didn't want the decent people to try. I already knew they cared and at least tried to be good people.
I've come home from so far
I wanted to be wrong. I wanted so, so badly for the words I'd hurled at them to be proven untrue. I wanted them to show me what it means that no one is alone. But they didn't say a word. Didn't lift so much as a toenail. They even encouraged me. And as I thought about it in those very last seconds, I felt it again. Pure, cold, wrath. Not just anger borne from fear or frustration, but that silent fury you feel when someone does something so bad that you just want to hurt them as much as possible. The last thing I felt, and I knew I was making the right choice. No matter what they said or did, I was going home. I was going to be happy again no matter what the cost. Eternally happy. Eternally free, the only way I knew how.
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain
Will make the flowers...