The Moment It All Changed

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/weekly-writing-challenge-golden-years/

I am a teenager.
This is something most of my followers probably know. I’ve just finished my finals as a sophomore, and will become a junior in July. Age is something I think about a lot.

My mother says I think too much about it. Give it a rest, Maddy, she says. I think about life way, way, ahead, imagining how the contours of my world will change and give way to something beautiful and unexpected and thrilling.

But I’ve never – not once – thought about my past. How I changed from who I was, to who I am now. You may scoff – after all, I was just a kid. Am still one. What could possibly have changed, or if it has, how the hell is it so significant?

Well, it is to me. As a child, I had a lot of problems to face. Problems I had to face all alone. These weren’t just some petty problems about my favourite color or my new toy that wasn’t working or whatever it is you’re thinking. No, these were major problems I faced – about myself, about what I meant to others, and simply what my existence meant in this world.
I was a quiet child – I didn’t share much, and didn’t have anyone close enough to share these problems with, except my mother, who was all alone taking care of my infant sister at that time since my dad was abroad working. When he did come to India to meet us, I don’t remember much, but I do know I was afraid of him. He had a very short temper. He still does.

So I bottled it all up, and it took a lot of time for me to start voicing my thoughts. The first person who ever, ever, knew me, the way I was then, was my best friend, Zaynab. We were both in sixth grade, I think, and she was the first person I ever opened up to, about my problems, about my life. Then came Sam, and I was possibly the most spoilt best friend you’ll ever hear of.

These two taught me to be the extrovert I am today. My relationship with my mother and father is now borderline hilarious, like we’re all best friends or something. My father has become amazingly easy going, though he still gets mad at minuscule things sometimes. It’s a mania of his.

My parents and I- We’re always making fun of this or that, and I am not ashamed to admit that my mother has been my best friend right along side Zayn and Sam (I love you both) throughout my whole journey,

Opening up like this isn’t something I do often, or will do in the near future. I’m not a sentimental person, but I do have boundaries. My best friends, they changed my life. New ones, and old. The two most amazing people I have ever known, have taught me how to survive in this world. They have taught me to be strong and appreciate myself and my life and what I’ve been given. Sam and Zayn – both of them are a large part of my life, and I have to leave them soon. We’re all parting now that sophomore year is over.

But I am thankful for them, and for this wonderful realisation that changed my life, personal or otherwise, that came from these two.

Okay?
Okay.

I love you guys.

There Is Wind [Weekly Writing Challenge]

There is wind.

I can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, but I feel the wind. It’s forcing itself through my body, through my mouth and nose and eyes. But that can’t be right – my eyes are closed.

There nothing but silence – cold, stark silence, which is nothing, and yet, it is everything, because right now, it is my entire world. For a second, it has consumed me, thwarted to compress and lower and disown and conquer me – it is everything and there is nothing else.

I wait, wait, wait for the sound of something, anything, at least my gasps, but no, there is nothing. I try to open my eyes, but for some reason, I can’t – they’re heavy as lead, and I can’t seem to able to move my limbs – I don’t even know how I’m aware of my limbs.

I’m waiting, waiting, for something to break the silence, please, please break this silence and let me be. I don’t know if I’m crying – I don’t know anything. The whole world is simply a void now, containing nothing.

Because my everything has been turned to nothing, these two words circle back in my head again and again, again and again, not evolving, not progressing, just circling.I feel hollow – this silence is the speech of the hollow, those without a soul. I can’t be one of them. I want to scream.

I need to scream, scream so badly. I want to break something and I want to kill someone.

If I could just move. I need to move. This needs to stop. This silence needs to cease.

But it doesn’t. It never does.

It still hasn’t.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/the-sound-of-silence/

The Letter [Weekly Writing Challenge]

I stand and stare at the envelope on the front porch. It’s just lying there, white and plain, with the words, “For Livvie,” written on them.
For Livvie.
For me.
I haven’t forgotten – it’s Valentine’s day. A boy just left from my porch.
He was really hot, dark hair and all, and he smiled at me and thrust the envelope at me, saying, “Happy Valentines Day” but I just stared at it and then at him for so long that he shrugged, placed it neatly on the porch, kissed my forehead, and sauntered away.
Now, my heart does a weird sort of somersault in my chest that my body would never have been able to do in real life, and I’m suddenly excited. I’ve never gotten a love letter in my life – not even when I was a kid.
I continue to stare at it, and suddenly the wind picks up and the envelope flutters, and my heart races and I jerk down and pick it up swiftly before it could get carried away into the air. It smells of coffee and cigarettes, and I’m wary as I close the door and just stand there with it in my hands, which are now shaking.
Honestly, I’m not usually such a drama queen. This could very well be a prank. I didn’t even know the boy. My head tries to reason with my heart, but to no avail. I try to brace myself as I tear it open with a sudden resolve, and a piece of notebook paper is suddenly in my hand, the envelope forgotten on the floor, now.
This is what it says:

Dear Livvie,
Have you ever seen the sun set? It’s a beautiful sight – the colors blend into each other and simultaneously refract, and the sky is orange, then red, then, pink, and as the sun slowly falls and dips beneath the horizon, for a minute, just a minute, everything is at a stand still.
At least, that’s how I feel. I’ve seen the sunset. But I’ve also seen you Livvie. And let me tell you, the sun set hardly stands a chance. It might be a beautiful sight. But you?
You’re breathtaking.
I see you, even though I bet you’ve never noticed me. You dark green eyes are always sparkling, always bubbling, and you’re always smiling, even when you’re frustrated or agitated.
I’ve seen you afraid, Livvie. And yet, you’re still beautiful.
In the words of Shakespeare, parting is such sweet sorrow, but I swear to you, if there is anyone who loves you more than anything else on earth, it’s me. Don’t forget me Livvie. You’re my sunshine.
-RAFE 

I stare at it for so long without blinking that my eyes start watering, so I carefully fold it and clutch it tight. Who is this boy? Who wrote something so beautiful for me?
I don’t tell anyone about it – I don’t know why, but I want to keep it to myself for now. Don’t forget me, it said. Which means I must know him. From somewhere. Rafe – but I don’t know anyone named Rafe.
It haunts my dreams, this letter. And in between my dreams, comes a memory, so, so faint, it’s barely there at all, but my mind grasps it’s threads and pulls them close, and then I’m back at the amusement park I went to six months back.
I’m laughing with with my sister and her boyfriend, climbing onto the Ferris wheel, when I realize that only two people can sit in one seat. My sister and her boyfriend sit together, promising me another ride.
I feel sad, but then a deep voice startles me from behind.
“Do you mind if I sit with you?”
I turn around and find myself face to face with the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen – blue eyes, dark brown hair, a little stubble on his jaw, full lips, and lashes I would’ve liked to cut off and paste on top of my own eyelids.
“I don’t have a partner,” he says apologetically. “Can I sit next to you?”
My head nods on autopilot, and suddenly I’m seated next to this gorgeous boy.
“I’m Rafe,” he says to me, grinning. I smile back. “My friends call me Livvie,” I say.
And then the Ferris wheel starts, and we’re up really high, looking down at the rest of the crowd.

But then I hear a creaking sound, a flash, the world tilting, and I’m falling…falling slowly and then suddenly  a hand grasps my shoulders and I hear a horrible sound of metal connecting with flesh and I’m thrown onto the hard gravel, the sound of metal crunching something echoing in my ears, and I see his face.
Rafe’s face – disfigured and broken and dead. The Ferris wheel rolling over his body, mangling it, crushing it.

I gasp as I sit up in bed, my hair matted to my forehead, my heavy breaths the only sound in the world.
He saved me. He saved my life when that Ferris wheel crashed. My sister died and her boyfriend died in that Ferris wheel six months ago.
I reach for the Rafe’s letter on my bedside table And cling onto it.
His letter to me.
But Rafe is dead. Rafe died saving me.
Rafe cannot be alive.
But I saw him today. He gave me this letter. He smiled at me. He kissed me.
How?
I don’t sleep the whole night, contemplating what the hell is going on, my emotions all over the place and thoughts on overdrive. How is Rafe alive? My hands suddenly claw at my fingers, and I look down, startled.
I was just gripping the letter he had given me.
But it’s not here anymore.
There’s nothing here anymore.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/writing-challenge-valentine/

Thud

The sound of the strong waves lashing
Against the rocks is something
That makes even the most stone
Hearted people reconsider
Everything in their life. Because
You know that when you look
Down upon that shore from
Where you stand up here on the
Edge of this cliff, it will be the
Last thing you see, the
Last thing you hear, before 
Falling into oblivion. That thud you
Hear is your skull slowly making 
Contact with the shards of
Rocks lying hidden beneath the 
Beauty of the waves, and they
Said your life would flash before
Your eyes but of course it doesn’t. 
Do you hear that? 
Do your see it?
Can you feel it?
No, of course you 
Can’t. Of course you don’t. 
Because there is nothing after 
That thud. There is no angel
Singing, no light streaming, no
Beauty pouring into 
Your life force and lifting you
Up towards Heaven or 
Forcing you into Hell. 
There is nothing. 
You are nothing. Not anymore. 
There is only
Emptiness. A vast,
Vast, emptiness, swallowing you
Whole, making sure that
You are not anything
Anymore.
Do you realize? The last sound you 
Heard, was not your mother’s
Voice,
Or your father’s laugh, or your 
Sibling’s cry, or your lover’s 
Gasp. It was a meaningless,
Short, THUD. 
Even the waves lashing 
Around you cannot 
Change that sound
That will be stuck with 
You for eternity. 
That emptiness, which
Will condemn you and
Never let you go.
Do you see now? Do 
You finally understand?