I once knew a child, lets call her Little Isabelle.
She was bold, bright, and shiny new, her laugh made of spring flowers, her stare of sweet cinnamon.
But she has these friends, voices inside her head that didn’t belong to a body, voices whose names she was afraid to speak out loud.
As Little Isabelle grew older and the voices grew louder she hid behind her long, black, hair and intricate, filigree lies.
People saw, but never noticed, her big, brown, desolate eyes behind her heart shaped sunglasses, and the ones who did turned their backs.
Little Isabelle knew nothing but solitude and torment, so she cut her hair, exposing herself raw in hopes of someone loving her for what she was.
But, when she did that, she got calls from unknown numbers telling her it wasn’t enough and their pockets were more like trenches than denim, so she gave and gave until she was only skin with no bones to hold her up.
Even so, you’d never see her mourn. Her smile was rehearsed and her makeup perfectly careless and her laugh made of silk.
Pretty was all Little Isabelle had left. And that’s all that matters, right?
Depression Is?
Depression - it isn’t girls in baggy sweaters and messy hair staying home when all of their friends are out.
Depression is not exactly the silent serial killer people tell you it is. It is more the gentle lover that embraces you with warm arms.
But they let you be the little spoon so you don’t see them getting ready to rip out your hair and leave bloody divots in your back and you don’t care to realize the change of sweet nothings whispered in your ear to belittling comments because it’s so easy to forget this is an abusive relationship.
Depression isn’t the pretty barista at Starbucks, it is not taking a shower for a week because your bed feels warmer than the water, it is having an empty stomach because your sheets are more inviting than a slice of pizza.
Depression is sitting down to do homework and getting physically exhausted from algebra and when I’m lying on the floor of my room crying into the carpet it’s hard to realize people convince themselves they want what I have. They see me coughing up powerful tales and love how they’re poetic and “hauntingly beautiful” but they fail to see the blood and vomit covering them.
Depression is my room mate, Anxiety the uninvited guest and my so-called friends get tired when they have to share my 800 square foot apartment because Depression & Anxiety take up so much space and I keep myself crouched in the corner instead of in the middle of my living room.
Depression is hard to get over when you’re mental illness is just a mood playlist on Spotify, when the words that tumble from your lips that come from desperation are reduced to a black and white quote photograph for a ”depression blog”.
And maybe people should start worrying about the problems this death sentence causes us, instead of the chaos we make cause because of it.
Heart Shaped Sunglasses
5/13/15 9:16 P.M.
Signed Sincerely, Kellen Benetua
Part One; The First Look
She was 13. He was 14.
It was at a dinner party. Or a birthday party. Alexander always forgot. There was a charity ball there, an auction here. The lines of the events blurred together like mixing paints. He never really cared about anything going on until his mother made him. Alexander’s mother used him and his sister as a conversation starter. “Oh, Ophelia, you’re so strong” they would recite from a script they memorized in front of the mirror. “Try saying that when you realize she cheated” He would muse to himself.
Alexander’s eyes were hopeful and effervescent. He always scanned the room for kids his age, peeking behind tailored suits and flutes of champagne, but nobody was ever there. Until there was. She was a girl who would ensnare people with a bat of her eyelash and giggle here and there. She fit in easier with the adults than Alexander. When he was made to sit next to her she scoffed at his attempts at conversation.
In the small talk they exchanged he found her name was Isabelle. In the silence that wasn’t too silent he found himself staring. She had long waves the color of a crow and cognac brown eyes that pretended to be jovial. Isabelle wasn’t hot like the girls in his grade. She was terrifying and strange and beautiful, and Alexander didn’t know what to make of her.
Isabelle was intimidating and he almost cheered when her mother called her over. She turned around and gave Alexander a sad excuse of a smile. And she was gone in a blur of crimson satin and high heeled mary-janes.
Part Two; The Beginning. Well Sort Of.
She was 15. He was 16.
He saw her again. But nothing like before, when he could dissect her every move and guess the next one. Isabelle was in a Starbucks in downtown Seattle. Alexander was feeling sorry for himself.
Her curiosities about the boy with the clear periwinkle eyes returned when she gave him a sorry excuse of a smile. Yet again. Alexander scavenged the floor for his confidence, but it was too late. Isabelle was gone in a haze of mustard yellow skirt and lace-edged socks.
Part Three: Peach Schnapps. The Chicks Dig It.
She was 16. He was 17.
All of the kids Alexander looked for were at that party. All of the kids who hid behind their parents’ Valentino gowns.
Even Isabelle appeared. Her hair was curlier and her lips pinker. She looked older but Alexander couldn’t really tell all that much. She slinked around the balcony, the bottle of Peach Schnapps not really concerning him as much as the sunglasses.
“It’s dark.” He said.
She scoffed.
Part Four: Another Conversation Starter.
She was 16. He was 17.
Half the year passed by in a flash of glitzy parties and bottled blondes.
The father Ophelia hid from Alexander began to get thin. His hair came out in light brown clumps. Then all together. Alexander called himself a coward because he couldn’t look at him like that. He only went in to say a microscopic goodbye.
The next week he found himself surrounded by strangers and hand-me-down apologies. Even his mother cried. Who would have guessed. Isabelle appeared, a whir of black cotton and a face void of emotion. She mumbled an “I’m sorry” and slid off her heart shaped sunglasses.
Alexander decided her eyes were graygreenbluebrown instead of just brown. He also decided the sorry was sincere.
Part Five: “What Will They Think?”
She was 17. He was 18.
A year later Alexander moved out. Not because of college, he deemed that a thing of the past a while ago. He left because he felt like it. His mother was unbearable, his sister only pretending to care. He didn’t know where he’d go but it was better than sleeping on a lie.
“You know this will break mom.” Alexander’s sister said, shaking her head. He knew that she only said that because it was what she was supposed to say.
“More than anything else has?” He replied. She fell silent.
Part Six: Dark Curls and Absinthe.
She was 17. He was 18.
Alexander lived in grungy places, his money blown on alcohol and motels. They only gave him jobs because they pitied him.
+++
He called Isabelle one day. He found out her mother’s name is Denise. She was friendly and promised a bed to sleep in for a price.
Part Seven: Coraline.
She was 17. He was 18.
Coraline, Isabelle’s sister, returns from Scandinavia. She tells tales of beautiful cities and exciting adventures.
Isabelle tells Alexander she wants to go to Paris someday. She gets a dreamy look in her greygreenbluebrowneyes as he promises to take her one day.
Alexander didn’t see her wear the sunglasses for a while. She was bold, beautiful, bright, and shining.
Part Eight: Unknowing.
She was 18. He was 19.
Isabelle leaves to be leader at some summer camp one summer morning. She whimpers when she has to go, clinging to Alexander like cellophane. He whispers reassurances into her ear. She smiled at him that mysterious, bright, smile she reserved just for him.
Isabelle slid on her heart shaped sunglasses and was gone in a whir of baby pink shirts and secret smirks.
Part Nine: Just His Luck.
She was 18. He was 19.
Neighbors screamed and dogs barked. There was blood…too much blood. Denise’s body was mangled and laid in a heap beside the chunk of metal. Alexander’s throat closed up and his whole being shook with tremors. He could only stare and sob.
He thought of himself and how the woman who was in the other car was only wounded. He felt guilty for not thinking of Isabelle.
The neighbors give him makeshift apologies he didn’t want or need. Alexander refused to tell Isabelle over the phone. So he drove until the trees and clouds turned into clean skies and sunsets.
Part Ten: A Thin Cloak Of Ivory.
She was 18. He was 19.
Isabelle’s mind ran with unanswered questions. They drove and drove until Isabelle could swear she could see the earth curve looking out onto the fields.
“Where are we going Alex?” Isabelle asked tapping her fingers on the dashboard.
Alexander didn’t reply as he pulled into the parking lot of a motel. Isabelle didn’t object when he ordered two single bed rooms.
+++
Isabelle knocked on his door that night. Alexander wondered when she would come around. He told her earlier and she shook the walls with her sobs.
“She’s having a nice time, Belle. She’s up in heaven.”
“Heaven doesn’t exist, Alex.”
It was 2:36 when Isabelle hummed an excuse. Before he could say anything she was gone. A lacerated mess of silver nightgown and lavender perfume.
Part Eleven: “I’d Like To Be My Old Self Again.”
She was 18. He was 19.
The next day she barely came out of her room. When she did, her cheeks were blotchy and her red-rimmed eyes behind heart shaped sunglasses. He let Isabelle cry into his chest, leaving tear and snot stains in her wake.
+++
A week later she was buried. Isabelle sat in the parlor so still it made Alexander worry. She wore her black cotton dress. She scoffed when people gave her pitying looks and flimsy apologies.
She looked the same as she did at the motel. Ratted waves, her bloodshot eyes covered.
Isabelle didn’t cry that day. Not even when Coraline left for Europe that night.
Part Twelve: Burning Red.
She was 18. He was 19.
When they got back home, Isabelle locked herself in her room. She didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and didn’t come out. After she waterlogged herself every second of the day, her sorrow turned to rage. Alexander let her scream and yell like a banshee until she passed out.
Alexander didn’t have any words the day Isabelle told him to kill her. The sobs that left her body haunted Alexander.
Part Thirteen: Maybe.
She was 19. He was 20.
Like he promised her, one summer Alexander takes Isabelle to Paris. She smiled that radiant smile she reserved just for him.
She still cried at night.
Part Fourteen: Wildest Dreams
She was 19. He was 20.
They returned home and Isabelle didn’t lock herself in her room. Isabelle threw the black cotton dress she wore to the funeral into the fireplace. She stopped talking in riddles. She took off her heart shaped sunglasses and there she was. Isabelle. His Isabelle. A blur of opalescent light, a fever dream of a girl.
Part Fifteen: “See Me In Hindsight.”
She was too old for her age. He was too young.
Eventually Alexander tells Isabelle he loves her.
Isabelle scoffed. “Like I already don’t know.”
Even so, she smiled at him that mysterious, bright, smile she reserved just for him.
She slides her heart shaped sunglasses onto her eyes, looking up at Alexander.
The Isabelle he remembered in flashbacks that sizzled his mind was finally there. The Isabelle with long eyelashes and a laugh that even tickled blunt Alexander’s insides. The Isabelle that was bold, beautiful, bright, and shining.
AUTHORS NOTE; just this year i’d come to terms that it is ok to throw up blood and guts and sonnets that make no sense because it means you have something to say. i have a lot to say, actually. some of you will recognize the words i spit out onto the page as your own fuckups and your own beauty that was graced into my mind and that is the point of this. this is based off the clockwork of the people i know and the events i’ve witnessed. i’m really good at this, actually. i try to see things as they are and not the versions you have mocked up for me.
they say by the time a writer is 20, they would have had experiences to last their creative lifetime. i’m afraid i am merely ¾ of that age and have already had too many to count, even if i wasn’t present at the event.
PROLOGUE;
I could see it now. I could see everything, then again. But the vision of the blonde-hair blue-eyed Ana skulking into the small door of the Golightly residence that danced across my open eyes was vivid now. More visible than the rest.
A sphinxlike smile splitting her chapped lips and the door swinging behind her on careful hinges. Rustling in the loft, tiptoeing upstairs. Making sure the cupboards in the basement that were always locked, opened without a sound, even though there was only her there to hear it.
Oh, Ana. Our present cannot be dead to some. Only with a limp.
“Life is not the opposite of death, it is just death rising from the ashes and becoming something new. But for one who rises from the ashes as death, they are not dark and gloom, but the brightest of them all.”
Chapter One; E L I J A H
October 24th, 2014
I REMEMBER DEATH; not in the way you think. Death is much more than a flat line. Death was hearing the door cracked open at three forty A.M. Death was hearing my Mom scream for me, but she knew. Just as good as I did. I couldn’t help her this time.
I was used to holding her hair back when she vomitted into the toilet, and lighting candles and turning every fan on when Aunt Ceci visited so she didn’t smell the smoke. I was used to refusing Beck’s help because he was only fifteen and was too young to deserve this. I was young too, barely eighteen. I was considered an adult now. My opinion mattered because of my age. But I had already taken up my duties when I was twelve. I was used to cleaning up. Mostly bottled dreams and broken promises.
What I wasn’t used to was them. The Council. I had learned about them as a child. My mother’s face dropped when she had told me I couldn’t do what they did. I guess I sort of knew her expression was lying. Even at ten. I was her personal disappointment even if she never said it.
Instead of personal disappointment she called me an Dweller. Beck wasn’t anything since we adopted him. He was a Regular. The world I was supposed to be from seemed like something that dripped out from a paradox of Alice in Wonderland and a Tim Burton movie.
It was a region where people let death walk onto their doorstep and let him come in for dinner. The earth was adorned in lush greenery and ethereal creatures. It was called Fallase.
It seemed like the closure I needed. Yet, the land was as untouchable as Beck in the morning. It existed. But I was here and it was there. I was born without anything to make me worthy and it held the highest of all.
December 11th, 2015
I REMEMBER HER; in flashbacks that sizzle my mind and leave spots dancing across my eyes for days. I remember that dumb leather jacket with the tassles on the arms that looked horrendous but she pulled it off so well. “Like a ten cent stripper” she would say when I would comment on that damn coat.
I remember seeing her like smoke. She was in a different place every second. She was powerful. Fearless. In control. Polar opposite of me. Polar opposite of what I saw every other day. When the time was just right for me, in the most morbid of ways; and the time was so wrong for her.
I remember she was an outrageous Givenchy ad in People magazine (I only knew who Givenchy was because she scolded me for reading a clothing tag and pronouncing it wrong). Black hair, green, sinful, eyes, fear-inducing smile. Freckles that danced across her cheeks in beautiful constellations. I remember laughing and telling her I found the little dipper in them. She searched for hours and then smiled and called me a liar.
She was a blur of opalescent light, a total dream. It felt wrong to see her like…that. To not see her powerful. Fearless. In control. The polar opposite of me. I saw it sometimes when I would get the courage to look into those green eyes and not just the whites. I was in denial back then, though.
I played it off as nothing. But, oh , was it something, Violet. More than something. Her mountain was my molehill. That is why I’m writing to you. I do hope you can understand.
When she would talk about you in riddles, she would say you were good at understanding. At least I think so. She indirected you as a close friend. And I’ve always trusted Aurora’s judgement.
Yours Truly,
E.J.W.
The Avenue of Giants. The scenic 101 route in California, home of the Redwoods.
This made my heart jump.
