The Room

Sometimes I feel like…

I'm trapped in a room. Each step echoes against the cushioned walls, each breath whispers soft secrets to the skylight. It is just me, stretching tall on a chair, screaming. But no one can hear me.

I scream and scream, a blood curdling scream, until the space closes in around me and the walls pulse with each heartbeat. I try to catch my breath and notice a girl sitting in the corner. She looks like me, but her eyes are glossy and swollen; hollowed like a shallow puddle in a foggy forest. She stares at me with a furrowed brow and scowls with her cracked lips, as if she will spit on me if I scream again. "Stupid girl, no one can hear you. Stop wasting your breath."

I look back up to the small window, a shred of light fighting to make it through. My breath fogs the glass as I scream again, the outside world disappearing from view. The sky pans in an ocular distortion, like a tunnel.

I look back to the corner and the girl is gone. I climb down from the chair and slowly walk over and sit down in her spot; to feel someone, to feel something. I stare at the dim moonlight and the only thing I feel is the numbing warmth of a tear slowly rolling down my cheek.

The room is cold and blue. I feel cold and blue.

I awaken to the screams of a young girl; the pink of her cheeks softening and a heavy fog roaring out of her slacked-jaw as she pants for air. She wobbles high on the chair howling into a crystallized window high above. The sky disappearing. A weak beam of light fights to enter. She screams and screams; each pitch hitting a new note of despair.

She turns to look at me and I recognize her, but my eyes are too tired to care. She screams once more and I say, "Stupid girl, no one can hear you. Stop wasting your breath."