Red

In the distance is a line defining where I've been—the state I'm in

And ever since it began to slip from my two hands I've been

Taunting fires, touching wires, been believing liars.

Everything they said, painted in red.

I am fading in and out—

What are you gonna do?

Save me now, from this danger?

You don't know how.

I'll find my way out when I'm in the red.

Listening to strangers inside my head,

The darkening angels beneath the bed.

I still see what you said.

What are you gonna do?

No way for you to save me.

- Sara Bareilles, “Red”

Epilogue: Safety

I just resurfaced and here you are

I must admit that it has been hard so far

I said skeletons are fine, your closet or mine

And we took turns recounting the details of lost time

And when we had both admitted it all

We threw our heads back

And laughed until we cried

We laughed because the world

Is absurd and beautiful and small

- Ani DiFranco, "Small World"

 The hardest part has been training my body to move again. Fingers that once nimbly worked with a stake like it was an extension of myself, now struggle to grip a fork or a pencil. The girl whose body was programmed to dance with darkness is dead now. I left her behind, somewhere in the hell I was reborn from, but I have a hard time mourning her. Honestly, I'm glad she's gone.

 I sit on the porch, enjoying the feel of the sun beating down on my skin, when Buffy gets home from work. She smiles as she gets out of the car and heads over, sitting next to me. My fingers fumble with the lighter in my hand, but Buffy stopped being hypervigilant a long time ago, and she lets me fight with it until I'm rewarded with the whooshing of the flame. I light the joint between my lips and take a few drags, feeling my body start to loosen up as I do.

 The weed helps. It tones down the tremors and keeps the memories at bay. I pass her the joint and she breathes the smoke out slowly, reclining against the stairs next to me and rubbing my thigh lightly with her free hand.

 We don't speak. We just sit in a kind of silence you can only find with someone who understands how ugly you are inside and wants to sit with you anyway. Probably because now we have the same ugly inside. Sometimes she wakes up screaming, too.

 I don't think we'll ever be okay, either of us. But once we stopped trying to be, we were able to start trying to live instead. We take each day as it comes, screams and all. Sometimes I need the pain to remind me that I'm alive, but it happens less and less and I find myself reaching for her instead of a blade more and more.

We stay there, watching the sun set. And for the first time in my entire life, I think about it rising again and bringing a new day with it, and I'm not scared.

I reach out and slowly take her hand in mine as the sun sinks out of sight.

And I smile.

Well the sun rose, with so many colors it nearly broke my heart

It worked me over like a work of art and I was a part of all that

So go ahead, push your luck, say what it is you gotta say to me

We will push on into that mystery

And it'll push right back

And there are worse things than that

'Cause for every price, and every penance that I could think of

It's better to have fallen in love than never to have fallen at all

'Cause when you live in a world, well it gets into who you thought you'd be

And now I laugh at how the world changed me

I think life chose me after all

- Dar Williams, "After All"