• With these cryptic poems, how am I supposed to figure anything out? Either way, isn't there going to be a tragedy?

    With that last though, I fell through the colors that held me in this place with all the answers.

    I guess bad thoughts really do weigh you down.

    I kept falling and falling, as gravity was taking forever to finish me off. A sense of invincibility covered me, a high on flying.

    Whatever I need to do, I will do. In the end I will be happy, I will make it so. Watch me win this game.

    Just, what game am I talking about?

    I finally reached the ground, ending one of my many chances at Him.


    Life 10 (The Artistic One)

    I slashed canvas after canvas each filled with dark pictures of another world. Faces that were never meant to be seen again, places that have existed in other truths. I killed each one, for each one brought me more pain and depression.
    I shattered them, until they were no more. But the green eyes continued to stare, my green eyes. But a different girl, one cursed to repeat and repeat one mistake after another, but she had a silly, dominant look as if she were the one who had conquered. The silly girl had met her fate her fate all the same, but in another portrait sure hope rose from her expression, making me all the more angry.
    I cut them with a feather pen's sharp point, why do they keep living? The same foolish expression and confidence that destroys them every time?
    I sat down panting from the effort, nothing like this had ever came over me before.
    I stared straight ahead. Everything was blurring, everything I have known died a short death.
    There she was, Alice was it, splashing around in a pink river, looking bright and radiantly beautiful as ever. Her brown hair shines healthily, her eyes glowing happily. Her smile lit up her surroundings. She splashed and played as if she were in a crowd, though she was all alone. She laughed and smiled at people who weren't there.
    But all of a sudden...Shadows came. They stood as real men and mouthed words they could not say to Alice. They smiled and laughed, though no sound came out. They had no eyes, they had no voice, Alice could not tell whether they lie.
    The shadows reached out for her, and she slowly took their hands. As she walked with them into the dark, leering forest, filled with unmentioningly terrible things. She looked back at me, her eyes sad, lonely, and old. She was not smiling. She would never smile again.
    I blinked rapidly, my breathing was coming in short huffs. Why? Why must They communicate in such a way?
    I felt shattered as the paintings I had cut. I closed my eyes and looked toward the small easel that was the only thing in my studio besides me and my many covered canvases, all with black cuts draping canvas dully.
    On the easel, was another portrait. The shadows had coaxed her, and this was the outcome. Alice was on a cross made from small tied tree trunks. Alice had known all along, but had kept playing at the river to not bring the shadows to her village.
    I shook my head, stirring my messy hair further towards chaos. Layla, do not mess with yourself further, or it may repeat, perhaps by your own hands if you continue. I chastised myself, why was I so frayed and depressing when Alice was so cheerful and bright? Could I become what she had, a girl who could give her life for the world's?
    A tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it, feeling horrible for not expressing my feelings in any other way then my portraits.
    "Kayla! Time for dinner! Get down here or yours will become the dog's!" shouted my stepmother who made no effort to walk to the door five feet away from the kitchen, the room supposed to be the garage. Her name was Marigine, a very dully, dreary name. One that may haunt me in my oldest of ages, I joked with myself. I went into the bathroom and combed my hair, creating many new loose ends. My hair reaches my hips, and has never been cut since the age of five. That was when I had panic attacks when scissors came near it.
    I walked into the dining room, and sat down at the folded card table in the family room, correct that; my personal dining room. On the table was asparagus, tomatoes, and turkey. For one; I am allergic to all of the above. Whenever I eat one of these things, I break out in hives, my lungs inflate, and my eyes start dialating. Marigine said it was just a bit of over reaction mixed with dislike. I placed the plate on the ground where Skipper, Marigine's princess of a dog, ate all that was on it except a peice of asparagus. She kept it in her mouth and ran to where Marigine was, lounging on the couch eating her third hamburger. Skipper dropped the asparagus at Marigine's feet. I knew what was coming. I closed my eyes and practiced the preparation method I had developed over the years; imagine happier days.
    Marigine stomped in as I imagined Mother brushing my long hair, gently detangling through it's small problems, just as she had done with the lives around her; helped them as well as she could.
    Marigine grabbed me by my hair and dragged my into the Closet. She locked the door, and the rest I cannot explain; I simply wasn't there, I was pleasently getting my hair brushed by Mother.
    She opened the door and shoved me out, grumbling as she left me alone in the hallway. I got up and stumbled my way to the bathroom. I leaned against the wall. I checked out my series of new bruises. They stung when I touched them. On my leg was a bruise that would take forever to yellow and finally go away. What am I going to tell my teachers this time, that I pushed myself down the stairs? Marigine would surely act the part of the unloved concerned stepmother to perfection. Only a matter of time when child services comes to take me away for being a troublesome child.
    I saw to it that I wore a shirt that revealed the many yellowing bruises on my forearms. I made sure my hair was combed back to reveal the bruises on my upper head region.
    I wore a smile to make it seem as a pun, though a secret cry for help. I was surely to get beat for trying to signal to father what was being done. Oh well, not that I haven't taken an injury before.
    Father came home with an uplifting smile, Marigine met him with a sweet smile to fake to ever be real. They hugged and kissed and Father came over to me, hugging me lightly, completely ignoring the bruises just about everywhere. He looked into my eyes and said, "Good weather, ain't it Layla?" He smiled dazily. I was just about ready to cry, ever since Mother died, he's been like this; seeing only what he wants to see. His eyes were clouded with roses, hiding everything and coating nothingness with cream.
    I hugged him back as best I could, and whispered, "Yeah Dad, great weather." In truth, Marigine only lets me out when needed, to not gather any suspicion. I went to a friends house from time to time, but they were really my step aunts, and they were just as cruel and cold hearted. When I go to school, I dtich most of the time to go to the art studio in the old building of the school, the one closed off because of an earthquake a decade ago, they were just too lazy to fix it, so they bought out the girl's academy next door with tax money and put a "Fitzerand School of the Reaching" on it. I see what you're thinking "School for the Reaching?" Yeah, it's a school for flunks. They never teach us anything anyway. I feel bad for the guy to have a flunking school named after him, but he must have been a fellow flunker, maybe even one of the first. Not much to give inspiration and motivation towards improvement though.
    I was now in my art studio, painting rapidly with strong colors. Blues, greens, reds, grays, and oranges, I put them together to make the masterpeice I call 'Hell in a House'. In a closet was a girl beaten to death, a mother on a phone making excuses for murder to her lawyer, and a father upstairs napping peacefully, thinking the daughter at a girl's academy that doesn't exist. And in the small yard, a dog named Skipper was chewing on one of the girl's thrown away canvases. If I ever get murdered, just know the picture is in a laundry basket in the attic. It is covered with many articles of my clothing, it will be ignored for some time, I tell you. The date and my signature on the back, just in case.
    Make sure to give them hell in court I'll short as a earthly spirit, like one shouting at a basketball game. A cheerful way to look at it, isn't it?
    Anyway I'm going to school now, actually straight to the old art room.