Fantasy turns into harsh reality. |
Blueberry sandwiches stain teeth purple and she smiles at the sun, that gazes down at her, caressing her cheeks. Purple birds eat blackberries and disappear into a groundhog burrow, where they play poker for sunflower seeds. She wants to fly to the moon to eat stardust and bathe in moon juice, so a silver balloon escorts her to the north until it jerks free of her grasp on a stray gale and leaves her alone on the ground. An old car wreck blocks her path its frame a heap of twisted metal and shards of glass that cling to empty window frames like teeth: a decaying body left to the elements. The windshield lies on the ground before her glittering, jagged crystals their glamour enchanting her as she walks forth but they bite her bare feet and tear at her tender soles. She knows then she can’t touch the sky and her dreams are fleeting, like the mosquitoes who have chewed on her arms and stolen her blood. Burgundy runs on top of her flesh to her fingertips and candy tigers made of dyed orange and black sugar collect her blood in thimbles and carry it to their King, who paints pictures of the future And dissolves into nectar when the sky descends. White wispy clouds kiss the ground And flying squirrels start an army In airplanes made of diamonds. Sometimes the world disappears and the sky sips rain and fish turn into comets and everything is gone but then… She wakes up and remembers she’s alive with blue-raspberry tinted lips and steaming blood on her arms. She bleeds not because of mosquitoes or sparkling shards of glass but because her veins are screaming protesting the abuse she puts them through. Her heart strains to keep up with her habits pumping poisons through her organs each time her trembling fingers delicately place a colored pill on her tongue in a desperate effort to escape reality. Her mussed hair clings to the brick of the old, deserted office building that supports her nearly lifeless body as she slumps in its abandoned doorway. A dull needle lies near her limp hand and she shivers in the darkness of the city as a car alarm shrieks in the distance and the shadows eat her alive. |