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[Azure.]

 Every day is made of 86,400 seconds. 

86,400 battles with my brain, no backup troops or a new plan.

It is just me, fighting a war against myself. Often, I lose, tripping over the dirt as the words barrel out undeterred. Sometimes I try to catch them on the way out, the way that my classmates would lurk and scare me as I exited with books in hand. I would usually scream. The classroom was underground because the school was built on a hill, so the only natural light was a good ten feet high and filtered through windows. The shadows were elongated by the angles, and I could practice ballet in the empty room. Lifting my chin up and making shapes with my arms until I don’t seem like one of those dolls. The wooden ones, that artists use to practice anatomy and poses. Brandeis blue 


I shake myself out of the dream, so lucid that it could become a memory if I’m not careful enough. The lines between days have long since blurred out from specific moments to cloudy hours, with the occasional partly sunny afternoon. Mom and dad signed me up for ballet at age six, as soon as any studio would take me. The costumes are still in my closet somewhere, hidden behind white garment bags to keep them “safe from the elements.” After I aged out of the youth classes, they signed me up for modeling. 

Hours spent surrounded by sparkling costumes that cost upwards of five hundred dollars. 

I don’t want to see the sparkles anymore. They give me anxiety when I see those sequins winking at me in groups upward of a hundred. Most of the time, I can put it aside, shove it in the back of my mind and freeze it the way that seafood gets stored, so it doesn’t stink and ruin everything. Those winking eyes are always watching me, whispering and flying the flag of my mistakes. One incorrect step, a too-dim smile, and they fly to report back. Each carries a load of punishments and supplementary lessons on their backs, tied with a crimson bow.

My blood. 

It's running across the floor in a sizzling wave, outward in every direction. As the crimson wave ruins white fabric and stains double chain stitches, the cresting wave of pain is torn from my spinal cord. In its place lies a vacuity, almost humming with the crowd of nerve signals stranded at a foreign port. A soft roar takes up residence near the conch of my earlobe, strong enough to drown even the rhythmic drip-drip of my blood. 

Dimly, I recognize that my lower half has gone numb. All feeling wrung out of it, as a washcloth is twisted to eject water. The dress is ruined, stained with blood and sweat.  Thousands of threads are drowning, the light burning away my connection to this earth.

Stacks of money are burning as the dress dies. A spot on my torso is itching, dragging me into darkness.

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