My hands splay flat against the slimy pavement, glistening so bright with dew. Stars overhead twinkle merrily, sending sparks of thousand year old light down upon my face. My breath catches, hitches in my throat, then poofs out in dust. I haven’t breathed deep in so long, afraid to taste the contaminated air that has damaged my life.


The trees whisper secretly to each other, telling things about me, the girl who is rock still, stone cold, petrified as a piece of granite. I figured I was dead when I was born. So many insults had been thrown my way, that I just assumed I wasn't worth being born in the first place. At least the crickets like me. And the green green grass that pops back up even after I have tramped its head. And the baby blue sky that spits out clear drops of water like tears. Inside each small raindrop, though, is a dream. It’s a dream that was wasted. A dream that was going to be dreamt, but got cut short like a baby’s cry after it was not wanted anymore.


“You mean something.” the nightcrawlers tell me when they come out to play.


I can hear them saying this because they wriggle around my ears and mold themselves to my cold outline, creating a neat silhouette when I stand up. Then it blurs after a few seconds, fades, disperses, blowing away like the wasted seeds of a dandelion. After a while I start to feel that way, too. I don’t matter much anymore.



All I even hear from the real world are sober voices yelling at me to straighten up, straighten out, try harder, try better. That little ball of emotion I knot up in my gut grows with the new stuff that I feel. One of these days it’s going to choke me, ball up in my throat, leave my mouth open and gaping for air. I can’t feel anything anymore. I used to be able to feel everything, hear everything, see everything. Everything was so bright and sparkling. That was before life dealt me a cruel hand of dilemmas and problems.



So for now, all I can do is lay here on the wet, slimy pavement, and let the nightcrawlers outline my dead body, and hear the trees snicker and whisper through their leaves and be glad the crickets are okay with me, and hope the grass will always forgive me for stepping on it. All I can do now is gaze wistfully at the stars with their seemingly ageless light, thousands of years up there, floating in the thick space air, balls of energy. More than I could even be, less than everybody expects them to be. After all, I was born dead, I might as well be up there by them.