Dark black monsters coil around my brain

Whispering sentiments and dark thoughts,

Clouding my judgment while

Hushing my moral code.

My grades begin to slip

And my body begins to expand while

Sleep becomes a distant memory.

I look like a ghost

I have become a ghost.

 

I slip deeper in,

The world has become the land of

Fuck yous and go to hells,

An abyss impossible to see out of.

Though now I sit in a room,

A beautiful hymn echoing on the walls

It is colorful in contrast to my

Lackluster and dreary reality.

A delightful scene plays out in snapshot images

 

A young girl plays, a smile growing

Etched on a pudgy face lit with childish wonder.

The swing set has become her castle while

The sandbox is a vile place full of monstrous enemies

To be defeated by her valiant efforts.

Her stance is free

Her imagination comes to life

As she is the princess and warrior

The hero and heroine.

 

The room grows bleaker,

The kaleidoscope of colors fades

Grey over compasses the neon shades

Black overshadows the pastel undertones

Sneers overcome the snapshot images

And a deep guttural voice overcomes the soft

Lilt of the violin accompaniment.

 

Melancholy sweeps over the room

As violence overcomes the images.

The alcohol drowns the room as

Childhood is ripped away.

The imagination

The innocence

Gone.

 

Though, despair is wasted

For hope, a cliché term but for lack

Of any other word as powerful,

Was there.

Through the essence of acting,

There was the escape.

Stories, the ones she so easily found as a young child

Became her hope, became her dream.

 

To act is to connect

To feel

To express.

Though against all odds,

Through the resistance of my family

And the broken state of the bank account

Acting in film is connected to my survival

And to my sanity.

I will act

I will find it.

Because through acting,

I have become the princess of my childhood,

Ready to become a queen.