Will there be a day it stops? A day where the silence is finally accepted? I am sick of the fighting and bleeding. Sick of the desperation to meet your eyes again. My eyes cannot do it…They never could.

I imagined you with a strained smile and narrow eyes analyzing the world around you, but never at me. The love I had seemed picture-perfect. Those flowers you saw were weeds, and that chocolate I ate was mold. Naïve, I still smiled and looked down at the ground, thinking of all those thousands of movies and books. This was it! Finally, my heart was beating at the thought of making a dream reality, but it was really a nightmare stapled in sheep’s clothing.

Dreams, I soon found, were made for those of the weak and blind.

. . .

“Today is pretty outside, &*#%$. We should go to the park later…Oh! My mom just bought these weird broccoli cookies, but it’s like, actually good. Although the aftertaste is a bit iffy…I can make sandwiches too!” I walked with him towards the schoolyard where his friends were messing around as he stared at the leaves from the maple trees falling gracefully with the wind. I sensed something was off. Maybe he is mad again? I didn’t do anything…right?

“I’m done.” My emergency brakes stopped me right where I walked. Done? He never looked my way, just at his phone to take a picture of the leaves. I didn’t even see him roll an eye or invoke an emotion towards my reaction. His eyes seemed to be mystically empty from the world around us…

“What?” I stare at the back of his head as his caramel wavy hair flows with the wind like the leaves.

“You heard me.” He blankly stared as the tears recklessly pooled in my eyes.

“No, please! I…I love you! Don’t let this end! I’ll be better! I can be the person you want me to be!” My dream! It cannot be the end! Perfection! I need my perfection! He cannot walk away! Not like this!

“Bye, my friends are calling for me.” He looked uninterested as he lazily walked towards the crowded table, leaving me naked to the school. A deepish red splashed obnoxiously on my freezing skin. I grasped the arm that vanished in thin air as though he was a ghost. He was gone, even though he was right in front of me. My heart was ripped out of my chest and thrown onto the ground. Except when looking at it, there was no crimson red liquid spilling out. No, it was frozen and cyanotic. From the looks, it was already dead before he came.

I became numb to life. The air was cold, and my body turned a bluish purple. As if every moment lived were just a cover-up for this bluish hue encapsulating my bare, brittle bones. Seconds turned into minutes, minutes became hours, and hours became days. There wasn’t even room to breathe. I was dead. Walking into the school days after felt like I was the clown at a circus or the butt of everyone’s joke.

Those eyes. THOSE EYES… They would NOT go away. It felt as though they burned into my soul.

“Stop it!” The scream escaped my breath, making everyone gasp and stare around me. I spiraled out of control in front of everyone. My hair looked similar to a true witch like the ones in those childish-like nightmares while looking pathetic at that. I begged for the love of a boy who never knew what love meant. I was foolish and more of a clown than anything. I turned away with tomato-like features unable to comprehend the situation.

Slowly, my skin…it peeled? Layer, after layer, after layer of skin peeled gruesomely off while I howled at the endless agony. Yet no blood pooled. Only shriveled up bone and ash seeped off my aging body.

“DON’T LOOK AT ME!” My voice turned to the sound of rubble against a rubber tire on a dry day. I was hideous! The tedious minutiae detailing I had put to those countless layers of skin were gone to the wind. Almost as if they were poorly made by a novice craftsman. 

Glaring around, trying to hide what was left of my face, were blank faces not caring who, or what, I looked like. Glamorous photos being conceived, food being devoured, gossip coursing through peoples’ veins. That’s what people cared about. Not you nor I. Only themselves.

Dreams were for the weak and pitied. Yet, I find myself dreaming of a day where dreams were common and celebrated. Until then, my hands rot, trying to start at square one again.

Only to make another mask…for you.