Sanity

The floor was hard and cold but the more time I spent, my body pressed to the floorboards, the more comfortable they seemed. I thought about them rearranging themselves, until they formed a pit that we would all, one day, fall into.

I carved the silhouette of a ballerina into the wood. She wore a tutu and a look of tranquility you could see in the etches of her smile. I had never met this woman once in my life, and yet, the image of her never felt so familiar. She crept into my dreams many times before, she tugged on my heartstrings until I woke up, and yet, I had absolutely no idea who she was. Did I?

I traced the shapes of trees, their leaves slowly lurching to the ground, I traced clouds, waiting to release rain, to seep into the soil. I traced my own little world into the boards, the world I once knew; before the crash.

I remember the night like the back of my hand, and I remember the pain, as though it never left my body.

***

The sky was of midnight blue and my pulse was speeding. The train was what  no one could ever forget. It was ruby red, the paint chipping off the metal. The boxcars attached contrasted the locomotive with a fading colour of sapphire. What made the iron horse so perplexing were the bodies inside. All the colours of the rainbow were felt in their skin, in their heart, there was hope. Their bruises almost made their faces appear even darker and whatever hope that was there, was now gone. Bloody and beaten were hundreds, their bodies bent in interesting positions, some of them lifeless, and whether they were alive or not, almost all life was gone. A young boy was bent, his back like a scorpion's tail, he was a snail, no bones, no spine, no soul. He was dead.

***

The eyes of the lifeless still linger, they're always searching. They're in my mind and in my heart, and I will never forget them, they're looming, and I've lost sleep, I've lost myself in the dead. There is no other way to phrase it: the bodies of the dead have stolen my sanity. The flesh is frozen and the face is broken, the dead are still alive in us, and when we go, our eyes will be open, looking toward the sky.