Let me back up.

My life has been a series of cycles. I’d feel okay. Maybe even good for awhile. Then the days would begin to drag on until I was forcing myself through classes and other obligations. Sometime after that I’d begin crying weekly, then the tears would become more frequent until they occurred multiple times a day. There are periods in my life where I cried myself to sleep every single night.

Then I’d crash. I’d bawl my eyes out for 3, 4, 6+ hours. The next day, I’d be tired and I’d hit mental clarity. I’d get my energy back, I’d catch up and get ahead in school, I’d write thousands of words. And then, eventually, the days would begin to drag on.

I don’t remember when the cycles started. I remember months spent on the playground alone in late elementary school after I fought with my “best” friends. I remember consistently fighting the impulse to self-harm in middle school and lashing out at those who tried to befriend me because no matter who I had around, I felt alone. By high school the cycles and the self-hatred had worked themselves into my self-concept; they were a part of how I experienced my mind. I found a way to look at the crashes constructively – yes, they sucked, but I told myself that they were a way to constantly reevaluate whether what I was doing was working for me and a method of figuring out what I needed to change. In retrospect, sure, that’s a way to look at the bright side, but someone should have pointed out to me that if I hadn’t figured out how to live my life in such a way that I wasn’t regularly contemplating alternative uses of razors and electric tea kettles and losing hours to breakdowns after so many years, I wasn’t going to without changing my strategy.

Enter counseling.

I first remember seeing a counselor my junior or senior year of high school. I enjoyed talking to him; he accepted my eccentricities in stride and complimented me on how well I understood myself. I’m not convinced he ever really helped me, but he gave me a space to talk about myself for an extended period of time without making me feel like I was annoying him with it. For that, I was grateful.

I went to a small college first, and I’m pretty sure I saw all four of the counselors there at some point. I saw the one I was most comfortable with somewhat regularly for awhile during the fall semester. I was going through a cycle again and doing my very best to work myself out of it without medication. I made a list of things I was going to do to help myself. I wasn’t entirely opposed to medication, but I didn’t want it unless I found absolutely nothing else that worked. I stopped seeing him for a few months until I’d gone through another cycle and crashed again. That spring, I was told I had Bipolar II and put on medication for it because nothing else seemed to be working.

My first experience with medication was horrendous. Not only did the medication make my moods worse, I dealt with a huge degree of stigma and dismissal of my emotions from my family. Because I had a mood disorder and was medicated for it, they never took me seriously when I was upset. They never approached any problem as something for us to resolve – they told me to take my meds even when I had. So I stopped.

Then I transferred schools. I talked to another counselor regularly until he also determined that I needed medication and sent me to the psychiatrist, who didn’t give me a prescription. The next year, I felt myself on another down. The day I realized I was having trouble getting to class because I wasn’t sure I could handle the world, I had the foresight to start it once more.

The spiral was worse this time. I don’t know how much of it was due to schedule (I was taking the equivalent of 20 credit hours, working, trying to volunteer, and maintaining a social life, among other things), how much of it was other stressors (I went through my first break-up with a live-in partner of 3.5+ years, someone I’m very close to was/is still recovering from cancer, my job wasn’t quite covering my living expenses…), and how much of it was chemical.

I found myself unable to do any kind of work because the minute it was quiet enough to think I couldn’t focus on what I needed to do. Instead, I thought about everything the people I cared about most had done to hurt me. I convinced myself they didn’t actually care about me or that they were idiots for loving me and would eventually find something about me they’d leave me over. My mind told me I was worthless, an underachiever, that I’d never amount to anything. I shook and I cried and I feared the future. I couldn’t get any work done; the hours I’d set aside to do it were lost staring at the wall and forcing myself not to scratch my limbs hard enough to draw blood. I eventually gave up and began choosing Tumblr and Facebook over a few hours of self-hatred. I went to bed by 10:30pm so I wouldn’t stay up late enough to start thinking, because when that happened, I couldn’t get to sleep until at least 4. I started feeling sick constantly. My class and work attendance plummeted and I quit my volunteer position. I got continually further behind in school work, and every once in awhile I’d try to catch up only to be reminded why I stopped trying in the first place. I stopped shaving my legs because I didn’t trust myself with the razor. I failed a belt test for the first time since I did taekwondo as a child and didn’t bother testing the next time I had the option. I had intended to rewrite my novel this semester and I didn’t touch it. The little bit of writing I got done was either near the beginning of the semester while I could still deal with silence or in the form of short informal pieces I wrote through tears because I didn’t want to bother anyone with the same issues I’m always dealing with.

I broke. I realized I wasn’t going to be able to catch up on homework or rent, and I broke. At my next appointment, I made it five minutes in before I burst into tears. I was sent back to the psychiatrist and put on medication for major depression. I withdrew from classes so I wouldn’t have to take failing grades.

It’s hard not to be angry. I can’t tally up everything I feel was taken from me. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent crying, hating myself, questioning the validity of my emotions, and fighting self-destructive tendencies over the years simply because of these cycles. I can’t quantify the damage done to my self-esteem, my relationships, or my productivity. I don’t know how much money I lost because I couldn’t get myself to work or how much I’m losing by taking another semester to make up for withdrawing from classes this spring.

There were varying reactions to the prescription. My mother told me she was on the same medication and it was working well for her. A close friend cringed when I told her the name. The most troubling reaction by far was that of my live-in ex-boyfriend: “You know it’s going to kill your creativity, right? You’re not going to be able to write.” He supposedly had second-hand knowledge; someone he is close to supposedly lost her drive toward music/creativity after being medicated for bipolar disorder. Of course, he’s not the only one who approached the loss of my creativity with that level of certainty.

I’ve heard it before. I’ve heard the rumors that medications change your fundamental personality, make you into a zombie, take away your creativity. They weren’t new to me. His account may be true – I have no way of knowing it. I do know there have been other accounts like it. I also know that without my writing and my art, I cease to feel alive.

At that point in time, though, there was an undeniable truth: I could not function at minimal capacity. Sure, it’s tempting to outsiders to suggest that the only reason I couldn’t do it was that I was “doing too much,” but I know that’s not true. It had nothing to do with the amount of obligations I had and everything to do with the fact that I could not keep it together for ten minutes of silence. Sure, I was partially skeptical that something as insignificant as a chemical could keep me from my passions, but mostly, I knew I wasn’t able to excel in them anyway because of my inability to focus, and I was willing to take the risk of losing some inspiration in order to attempt to function again. So I shrugged it off, filled my prescription, and started the pills.

This was two weeks ago. I’ve stopped panicking whenever I’m alone with my thoughts for too long. When I’m not with someone, my sleep schedule is back to normal and I don’t go to sleep shaking. My thoughts have stopped being scrambled and it’s significantly easier for me to trust my feelings and approach problems with a level head. And all of the space that used to be occupied by insecurities and worrying and self-depreciation has opened up… and has started to get filled by artistic inspiration.

The medication didn’t take away my creativity. It took away all of the bullshit that prevented it.

I’m not pretending my experience is universal. I’m sure the rumors have a basis in someone’s reality. What irks me isn’t that this is a possibility – what irks me is what seems to be a common belief that one cannot both take medication that makes them function in society as well as be a creative individual. What irks me is that it was framed as a choice: my art versus my mental health. What irks me is that, in my lowest moment, someone tried to tell me that taking the one thing that would give me the ability to be content and productive would take away one of the things most fundamental to my personality and happiness. What irks me is that people told me it WOULD do this without accounting for all of the cases in which a person takes a pill and is able to be content, productive, and artistic.

We need to stop pretending that all medication is the same. We need to stop pretending that all bodies reaction to every medication the same way. We need to stop perpetuating the myth that you cannot maintain your creativity unless you let your mental illness go untreated. Because it’s all blatantly wrong.

The medication didn’t steal my creativity. Depression did. The medication brought it back.

The story follows a group of wanna-be pirates on their quests throughout a fantastic world and the plot focuses on two characters attempting to get revenge on several people who wronged them and their families in the past. Characters include Death, someone with moving tattoos, an immortal, a trickster god, and a shark/octopus hybrid. The script is comedic with serious undertones.

I’d ideally like to find 10-12 artists to take about a chapter each. Length of chapters vary – the entire script is just over 100 standard stage-play pages. All I can promise in terms of compensation is publicity relative to the amount of attention the comic gets and possible networking – I unfortunately cannot give monetary payment (although, of course, if the comic generates profit I’ll split it up among collaborators).

If you think you might be interested, please go ahead and send an email to edelinewrigh@gmail.com, no obligation required. I’ll link you to the artist page listing character/place information and send you the first chapter to give you a preview of my writing style and we can talk further.

Thanks, everyone!

And all she wanted to do was create.

She picked a star in the distance and plucked it out of the sky. She rolled it like a marble and imagined worlds within it, imagined herself a goddess, a queen, an empress. The Original Creator.

She had heard Celestite say she was going to fall in love. And she had, had fallen in love with the air, but she thought this was the first time she’d really looked at the way Celestite smiled and heard the way she sang. The idea became the reality; the possibilities romance promised were a thousand potential adventures, and Hematite cultivated adoration, carved a world of love into her marble and changed her reality.

But it hadn’t grown. Not yet. And so Hematite came down to earth.

—————

She fell into a garden. Fragrant flowers grew under a setting sun and leafy herbs stretched toward the sky. There were vegetables growing – she could feel them – and somewhere out of sight the feel of soil was disrupted by a pond.

In the center of all of it was a middle-aged woman with long brown hair and dark skin and laugh lines sitting cross-legged and wearing an expression of complete serenity.

“Welcome, child,” she said as Hematite approached. “Welcome to my garden.”

Hematite smiled and nodded. “You’re familiar, somehow, but I do not remember meeting you.”

“I’m Agate. I’m connected to the plants, to the soil, much like you are. I am Mother Earth.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, mother.”

Agate smiled. “You come with a purpose. You are learning what it means to be with an element other than earth, an element that moves. But you can’t stay in the air forever.”

“I’ll have to come back to earth?” Hematite asked. She thought for a moment that the idea frightened her, and she was more surprised than scared.

“In time you will, and when you do, you’ll be ready to be home,” Agate said. “You have fallen in love with the air but you have not learned half of what it has to teach you. And once you’ve learned its teachings, you must fall in love with fire and water and learn their teachings in turn. You have a long path ahead of you.”

“But fire consumes me,” Hematite said, “it burns away all that grows. And water carves ridges in stone as it passes by.”

“It is imperative that you learn how to work with them. You must learn to work with the world’s changes, for the world will always change.” Agate pulled an item from a pocket in the long, flowing dress she wore and handed it to Hematite. It was a small seed, as long as her pinky finger was wide, and she held it carefully. “Plant this seed wherever you wish in this garden, and it will grow with you. Even as you soar with air, dance with fire, and flow with water, you will forever remain rooted.”

Hematite walked through the garden.

She first found a thicket of roses, and though they were beautiful, she knew her seed could not prosper among the thorns. What was beautiful, what was appealing, was dangerous, and her plant would be throttled before it achieved adulthood.

She then found a gathering of bushes, and though they were hardy and established, she knew this was not where her seed could grow. There was no room for it to take root, no space for it to see the sunlight. No room for it to enact change. Here, too, would also work against her plant’s full potential.

But over by the pond was a spot of pure dirt, nutrient-rich soil that welcomed her seed, and she left it there to rest. One day she would return to it and see how far it’d come, but she had to grow herself.

She returned to where Agate sat in meditation. Agate opened an eye and stood to rest a hand on Hematite’s shoulder.

“I know you wish to stay here, child, but you have things to see and do in the world beyond. Your plant will keep you connected to this world, and even as you grow, so will it. When you return, you will taste the fruits of your labors. But you must labor.

“Go, child. Be well. Feel and think and dream new things and make your reality everything you want. When you return, we’ll be here.”

And thus, Hematite was cast from the garden and into the world.

—————

Sometimes I feel I do not have a foundation. I am an earth with no sense of home, no sense of how things should be. I had one, once, but then I went on a journey of self-discovery, and somewhere in that I lost my understanding of the world.

I have since made something stable of my life. I’m over-scheduled and sleep deprived. I have functional relationships and goals, but I’m lacking in accomplishments and my confidence is almost eternally faked.

I’m dancing with the air. I surround myself with it, love it, fuck it. I pull it from within me and convince myself to float, but in all of that floating, I worry I’m losing sight of the ground.

It takes everything I have to still feel it some days.

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy it.

———–

Melanie Brown was a runner. It was a ritual she had begun in her mid-teens, and a decade later, it seemed to be the only thing that had remained constant in her life. Her parents had divorced and moved, she’d made her way through college, and she’d gained and lost lovers, but every night she could manage it, she ran under the watchful eyes of the stars. Tonight was no different.

It was raining. It was one of those light, confusing cascades of water that fell from a few scattered clouds, but the summer night was warm and she didn’t mind the moisture as it soaked into her tank top and shorts.

Her feet beat against the pavement. Thump-thump-thump-thump. She hit a puddle. Splash. The world was soggy. Rain fell like tears from the heavens.

She ran faster, angry. Running was supposed to fill her with endorphins and distract her from the torment of everyday life, but even nature wanted to force her to cry tonight. No one seemed to understand she couldn’t. She had built her mind against it. Life changed too often to mourn every loss.

“But it’s your mother,” they’d said. “Are you so heartless you won’t cry for your mother?”

She imagined their faces on the ground as she pounded against it with every bit of strength she could muster up. She wasn’t heartless. The organ beat violently in her chest as if to reinforce its existence.

Chemicals coursed through her body, propelling her forward faster with every thought. They came in loops, then in little, concentric circles until there were only five syllables pumping through her mind: I am not heartless.

This path was familiar. It ran past the diner, past the cars of downtown, past the drug dealer on the fourth street. It ran all the way to the lake at the edge of the city.

From the path, the water was obscured by foliage. It allowed people to disappear, to conceal themselves from other strolling pedestrians. Melanie wanted this tonight. She was not the only one who chose to run in the darkness and she was in no mood to converse with well-meaning mortals. She slowed to a walk to navigate the brush and make her way to the shore.

Halfway down the hill she realized she would not find the peace she craved there. A woman in a flowing dress cried by the water’s edge with cascades of silvery-blonde hair that hid her face. Melanie walked away, looking into the distance many yards from the stranger. The moon reflected off gentle waves, and as she stared at it, it seemed to absorb her negative emotions. The four-word mantra continued.

I am not heartless. I am not heartless.

Her heart quieted. It was exhausted from what it deemed a misuse.

“You don’t love me!” her mother had screamed once upon a time. At least three glasses too many and her darkest fears were thrown as accusations at those who watched her on her path to self-destruction. “You’re all pretending. You don’t love me. Why do I even bother? Why should I even live?” She took a gulp of her alcohol and let the remainder fall to the floor, let the glass shatter and cast red lacerations on her foot. She didn’t notice, but Melanie had. Melanie had also watched her mother take the car keys and heard the door slam when she left. It was three weeks later when her father determined he couldn’t stand it anymore. Melanie couldn’t, either, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault. Just hers.

Melanie cursed the water under her breath in a foreign language. Gin sounded fantastic right about now. She pursed her lips and remembered the resolution she’d made to herself: She would never drink with the intention of dulling emotion. Not even to stop herself from crying.

“The water doesn’t like it when you cuss,” a voice chimed in her ear. “It causes unhappy ripples.”

Melanie twisted around. Sky blue eyes were set in a face that reminded her of paintings of nymphs and goddesses. It appeared as fragile and soft as it did fierce and commanding. The eyes stared at her, anticipating some kind of response.

“I didn’t hear you come over.”

“I move quietly,” the girl said. She looked to be about five years younger than Melanie. Her voice itself seemed to sparkle as she sang out her words.

“I guess.”

The girl smiled, exposing perfect white teeth that matched her dress and clashed with the darkness. Melanie scratched her head and looked away.

“Your mind is very full tonight,” the stranger said. “I’m sorry for your loss. It’s not your fault, though. None of it.”

“How do you…?”

“I have my ways.”

Melanie sighed. “Of course.”

Minutes seemed like ages spent in silence. The two girls looked into moonlit water, lost in their own thoughts for awhile. Finally, the blonde turned her head to look back at Melanie.

“You’re not heartless because you didn’t cry over your mother’s death.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She paused. “I believe I’m not.”

The stranger looked into her eyes. “You doubt it.”

Melanie grimaced. “Of course I do. A little. How do you know what I’m thinking, anyways? I don’t even know your name.”

“I told you. I have my ways.” She laughed, and something washed over Melanie. Peace consumed her, took over her, moved her focus.

“My name is Angelina,” she said, “If you’d like, you may call me Angel.”

“I doubt we’re going to speak again after tonight,” Melanie said.

“Oh, I believe we will.”

As soon as the words were spoken, Melanie knew the girl was correct. The two would be spending an enormous amount of time together in the future regardless of her proclaimed feelings on the matter. Melanie looked over her. The girl’s hair reflected the color of the moon and flowed down her shoulders like a waterfall. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized the rain had stopped a long time ago.

“The rain stopped,” Melanie said.

“Yes, it annoyed me,” Angel remarked, shrugging.

“It seemed almost like it was trying to make me look as if I were crying.”

“I’m aware. Isn’t it annoying when it seems like even nature is out to make your life hell?”
Melanie gaped. Angel continued looking out at the water.

“See… it’s people like me that have the right to complain,” she continued. “I did nothing wrong in my lifetime. I was a perfect human. Well, not perfect, of course, not like I am now, but I was good. I was loyal. And most of all, I was loving. Everyone knew I cared about them.

“But then… he left. I was chaste as a human, too. And my ability to cook could only hold a man’s interest for so long in those days.”

“As a human? You mean… you don’t consider yourself human anymore?”

“I haven’t been human for years now.”

“You look human to me.”

“I don’t have a heart, Melanie.” She moved her hair behind her shoulders, then placed Melanie’s hand in the center of her chest. “Do you feel anything? Do you feel a heartbeat?”

“No,” Melanie said.

“The absence of a heart prevents the pain it feels. It’s freedom. The girl I met down by the river that morning, she took my life. Took my empathy. But she took my pain.”

“What’s going on? Who are you?”

“My name is Angelina, Melanie. We discussed this.”

“What are you?”

“I am me. I am a creature without a heart, a creature that is derived from the form of a human. The title of my species varies depending on the region of the human world you ask.” She tilted one side of her mouth into a smile. “The specifics aren’t terribly important.”

“Fine, whatever. Don’t give me a straight answer. What do you want from me?”

“I want to end your pain, Melanie.”

“I can handle it.”

“Why do you want to?”

“Because I like my life. Because I value my heart.”

Angelina laughed with bells in her voice. “Of course you value it now. You don’t know how much easier life is without it.”

“I’ll keep it, thank you.”

“It’s not an option. I’ve wanted to move on for quite some time, but I couldn’t stand leaving this lake unoccupied.”

“Then wait for someone else.”

“Just think about it. You’ll be beautiful. You’ll have shimmering hair and eyes that reflect the sky. You’ll be able to speak music. And you will be free.”

I don’t want to be heartless.

“You can always fake a heart. It’s easier than running away from all of your problems.”

“I don’t run away from-”

“Then what brings you here on this lovely evening?” Thunder broke through the sky, and the wind over the lake picked up.

“I run every night, not just when there’s turmoil.”

“There’s always turmoil. It’s part of your human life. You run to numb it, don’t you? You run to make yourself heartless just so you can cope.”

“No,” Melanie denied.

“Then why do you run?”

“I…”

But she had nothing.

Angel nodded. “Exactly.” The storm picked up. “Do you see the water now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see how the surface is uneven, how the water is warring with itself?”

“Yes.”

“That, Melanie, is you inside.” Angel twirled her hand through the air and everything stopped. “Do you see the water now?”

“Yes.”

“That is me inside. Calm, smooth. Reflecting beauty and the grotesque fairly. But when an outsider looks, all they see is beauty.” She smiled. “The water is nice, Melanie.”

The sun was beginning to peak through the clouds. Angel was several yards out in water that only reached her ankles. She waved to Melanie to follow her.

“Aren’t you tired, Melanie?” Angel asked, casting her charms once again. “Aren’t you tired of running?”

“I am. I’m so, so tired.”

“I can help you.”

“I know.”

“Come,” Angel said, holding out her hand. Melanie obeyed; such was the power of Angelina. Such was the power of her kind.

Small pale arms surrounded the runner. As the sun rose, her first tears in almost a decade began to fall.

“I hurt,” she muttered.

“I know. I can help you.”

Melanie nodded.

“Close your eyes,” Angel said, touching Melanie’s eyelids softly with her fingertips.

Melanie did not see the storm pick up, did not know her fate until she felt the waves carry her away.

Melanie still haunts the lake. She waves to travelers and gives them the help she can, and all are entranced by her.

She feels no pain now. Only the storms give clues as to when she would be crying, were she still human.

The storms most closely resemble the heart she used to have. They rip the lake apart at her bidding.

But inside, she’s flat.

But there was no gravity and it was uncomfortable.

Hematite was aimless. There was no ground, or there were many grounds, and none were within grasp.

“I do not know where I am going,” she said, and she floated on.

In the distance another figure floated, a figure with flowing silver hair. She was like a shooting star, a diamond of the sky, and she danced around the planets and comets like it was her home. She was a beacon of beauty and she drew attention from even the sun. She spun with the air, not against it, and made it to Hematite in a matter of moments. She held out an elegant hand to Hematite and bid her to dance.

Hematite was dazzled by the pale blue, shining eyes and the manners of this girl.  She had nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, not in this space of rocks and gases floating just as she was, and so she took the dancer’s hand and allowed her to spin her around.

The dancer’s voice was sweeter than she expected when she asked “Who are you?”

She simply smiled. “I’m the one who’s here to save you from yourself. To change you from your old ways. To let you know what it’s like to feel free and unrestrained and to love every moment of it.”

“And who are you?”

“The one who’s going to show you how to love freedom.”

“And who are you?”

Hematite’s meaning was not lost, not really, but the dancer liked playing games.

“Celestite. And you’re going to fall in love with me.”

—————

I told you this was a metaphor. That doesn’t mean I know exactly what it all means.

I don’t know who Celestite is. I do have a propensity for falling in love with dancers, with free spirits who see the world as a series of opportunities to explore worlds outside of their experiences, and perhaps Celestite is nothing more than an idealization of all the women I’ve loved who inspire me to leave security behind in search of something greater.

And perhaps Celestite is not. Perhaps Celestite is merely that part of myself that yearns for it, that can’t stand stagnancy even if it is a comfort. Perhaps Celestite and Hematite and Sodalite are all me, and their adventures with one another are simply the mind games that go on somewhere deep within my subconscious.

And perhaps both are true. Perhaps neither are. And perhaps I’m going to fall in love just the same.

—————

“Are you an Imaginer, too?” Hematite asked. “Will I fall in love simply because you said it?”

Celestite giggled like bells, chimed so space filled with the sound of her. “No, no. You’ll fall in love because you want to. You’ve been looking for a way to escape the ground even as you seek it.

“Dance with me.”

They spun through the air and Hematite grasped on to Celestite, and somehow it was okay that they were flying through the air and weren’t grounded to anything. For once, Hematite was grounded to another, a beautiful spirit, a girl who smelled like adventure and exploration and honey and sang like there was nothing that could hold her back. And somehow in that singing and dancing and floating through space, Hematite became okay with holding onto something in flux, became okay with the fact that the girl she held to was ever-changing, because, indeed, everything was. And something about this time in this place with this being made her feel alive in a way that staying stagnant had not, and she could feel herself changing even as she spun, and she knew there was no way for her to return to the place she had begun. Because, indeed, it no longer existed, and even if it did, once she returned she would be so different that it could never be the same anyway. Somehow, there was peace in knowing that would always be the case.

And it felt crazy. Just a little bit. Crazy to feel like she’d never see the ground again and never wanted to.

 Celestite lead Hematite to her dreams. She lead her through planets and stars and moonbeams, and the earth fell in love with the sky.

Everything is a metaphor. The tarot is a universal story and the stones sit idly by as I type away about their doings.

I have so many choices, so many paths to take. I have so many things to balance and so many things to think of, and somehow at the end of the day, everything is up to me.

Their fates are up to me.

—————

Hematite found herself in a field of flowers. The sky above was back to blue and the ground below was soft. She could smell rose and lavender and lilac, and beneath it all, she thought she could even smell grass and dirt and limestone. The light breeze whispered to her of hopes and dreams and, above all, possibilities, and it urged her toward trees.

The trees formed woods when she approached. There were three paths, and uncertain which to take, she paused a long moment and made peace with the ground beneath her.

The wind whispered to her to take the one least traveled by. It was not in her nature to take the advice of air – within it, she became a tornado – but she was compelled to, and thus she did.

Sunlight streamed through auburn and golden leaves to paint the world in the colors of the harvest. The world was changing from the steady warmth of summer to the cold and darkness of winter. For Hematite, the transition was the worst – it was during the transition that everything was uncertain.

Or was it? The change was inevitable, certainly, but the destination was clear. The leaves changed, then fell. Then the sky changed to grey and snow fell in flurries to cover the world in white until spring…

Unless, of course, someone with the power to Change disrupted the cycle. And that was the problem.

A tiger came to her as she walked. Its eyes were topaz and its coat was chatoyant, its layers shining in the dappled sunlight. It purred and rubbed against her like a common house cat and revealed to her everything she was capable of. It stood on its legs and stared her in the eyes, and in that moment, all of her skills and assets and abilities became clear.

She walked on. All she could be certain of was herself. For the moment, that was enough.

—————

I don’t mean to mislead you.

There is a part of me that is certain of myself. There’s a part of me that is certain where I’m going and what I want, and I’m entirely capable of telling you what I want to be doing.

But I don’t know what that means. Not in the greater scheme of things, not in terms of these shifting worlds. And I certainly can’t tell you what it means on a day to day basis or what it’s going to make my life in the external world look like.

Within me, the air calls. It tells me to jump and trust myself, and it tells me to create everything I want. But jumping off the precipice isn’t the hard part. No, the hard part is figuring out where I’m going after that.

—————

“I am not sure where I’m going,” she told the tiger. “And I know not where this path leads.”

The tiger pawed at her and crouched. She understood she was to ride him, and so she took her place upon his back and allowed him to pull her forward.

“Listen to the world around you,” he told her, “and let me guide you. Your adventure has only started, and there are so many more you may have ahead of you.”

The trees grew darker now, and Hematite could not see the sunlight above. A breeze blew through leaves to draw goosebumps from her skin, and she imagined eyes watching her as she went farther into the woods. But she was not afraid, could not imagine being afraid, not when she was astride her tiger. And Hematite was never terribly afraid when the earth was solid beneath her.

—————

Fears can only hide in the dark for a finite amount of time before they’re forced into the harsh light of day.

—————

The trees grew closer and the path vanished. As the tiger continued forward, the trees began to laugh and their branches reached out to touch Hematite. She was not afraid, not until they began to pull her from her foundation, not until she was flying through the sky.

The trees grappled with her, tore at her hair until it fell from the bun until it fell across her eyes. They tore at her clothing, exposed everything she hid within her, exposed every bit of uncertainty she held close.

The tiger was having none of it. It roared, forcing the world to shift, to illuminate as it wished. The trees that grasped Hematite were nothing but sketched lines, a crude landscape imagined by an amateur creator, and they could no longer hold her once their nature was revealed.

Hematite fell until she was once again at earth. The world around her was nothing but graphite lines, and she was certain there had to be something beyond them, but what there was and where they were was not something she could see. Messy sketches turned into clouds of grey in the distance and everything became clearer only after she approached it.

“Which way is out?” she asked the tiger.

The tiger planted its front paws into the ground and stretched out its back, then rose again to yawn. “I cannot tell you that. You simply must choose a direction and go.”

“Which way did we come from?”

“It is unimportant. Where we came from no longer exists.”

Hematite considered this and found it to be true. She took a deep breath and felt beneath her and chose the direction that felt most correct, then started walking.

“Wherever you choose to go is where you’ll grow,” the tiger said, “you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be. If you’re supposed to be anywhere in particular at all, that is.”

“I know,” she said, “I know.”

Nothing attacked them as they continued. No more sounds threatened from the distance, no more eyes watched them as they passed.

Eventually the lines sharpened from sketches into crisp ink and color began, turning the world into a comic book. The comic became more realistic until the world was once more as an actual place, and after some time, the trees began to thin and Hematite thought she could see light in the distance.

“When I am gone,” the tiger said, “remember I am with you.”

“You’re leaving?”

The tiger rubbed against her. “I was always here and always will be. You see me as external now, but I was within you long before you knew me and there I shall remain.”

“Will I be able to talk to you?” she asked.

“Always,” said the tiger, “but I will never talk back. Never in words, anyway.”

Yards away, the trees ended. The tiger lead her into the light and vanished.

She heard its voice tell her to trust herself and continue on. She was filled with a great confidence and sense of self-awareness, then all was quiet.

Everything I dream comes true, so please don’t tell me to sleep.

Sodalite sat with her feet dangling in the stream, brushing strands of grey hair so they fell smoothly across her shoulders like the water as it flowed across the rocks. She sang softly and felt the rhythms of the world course through her aging body as she created new tunes and called on something higher.

No one was certain as to her age, but then again, no one was certain about anyone’s. Not in this world of constant fluctuation, in this world where the wrong people simply had to think something to be true to make it such. What was certain was that Sodalite had been a part of the world for as long as anyone could remember and longer than some could. What was rumored was that Sodalite had been around since the beginning, and it was her ability to form something from nothing that made the world as it was today.

Sodalite’s body cracked until she wanted it to be loose. She stretched and imagined herself young again, and when she pulled herself out of the stream her wrinkles had faded and she once again looked as a child. She bounced along the path until she came to a challenging tree, and she climbed until she could see down the road to watch oncoming travelers.

She imagined herself balancing upside-down, holding onto the branch by her toes. She swung around and watched the world inverted and sang songs she made up way back when she’d originally been a youth. She let herself sleep.

—————

Sodalite dreamed of a shifting world. She dreamed of landscape changing, of the city formed differently, of the sky being purple instead of blue. She dreamed of a better world, of a world that didn’t need homeless shelters and a government that wasn’t corrupt. She dreamed of a worse world, of a world where people went missing and no one noticed and you always had to wait at least fifteen minutes when in line.

She dreamed of a world where people were forced out of their element, where earth types had to go on journeys and air types had to learn to stick around, where fire had to quietly follow and water had to fly.

—————
Hematite wasn’t sure why she was packing her bags, but then, it was hard to be sure of anything. This aggravated her, but there was only so much she could do. She was earth in a world that was constantly changing, and therefore, she was constantly out of her element. This world was made for the air.

She walked along a path of stones that reflected lavender skies. They were cool through her moccasins and she could feel their shape under the cloth. They grounded her, connected her to the land, and that gave her a little comfort.

She came to an old tree with twisting branches. When she was younger, she’d been told that winds in high elevations twisted to adapt to the constant winds. She wondered whether the winds had stopped or the tree had moved.

On the far branches, Sodalite napped, her grey hair falling toward the ground. Hematite checked to make sure her own black hair was securely attached to the back of her neck and loudly cleared her throat.

Sodalite opened her eyes and hopped from the tree with a nimble flip to land a few feet away from Hematite.

“I assume you know what I’m doing right now?” Hematite asked.

Sodalite just smiled. “I never know anything. I just make things up.” She whistled and danced down the path. A few yards ahead, she stopped and turned back. “You’re coming, you know,” she said, and Hematite had no choice but to follow.

“Where are we going?”

“On a journey.”

“Where are we going on our journey?”

“Hematite, Hematite,” Sodalite said, “You really need to learn to go with the flow. Don’t worry about the changes that might happen or where you end up. Just change as you need to and adapt to your destination once it’s your location.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” said Hematite, “you’re made of water.”

Sodalite shook her head. “We’re all the same. We’re all made of everything. Some of us are just friendlier with one element or another.” She danced on.

In the distance the world dropped off. She leaned over it to see what was on the other side.

“Look at this!” she said, and leaned farther to point at something Hematite could not see.

“You’re going to fall!” Hematite said. “Stop being such a damn fool.”

“We’re both going to fall,” Sodalite said, “the question is what’s going to happen after that.”

“Which is?”

“I already told you. We’re going to go on a journey.”

And Sodalite took another step.

—————

I am not sure what I am.

I’ve been told by some counselors that I have bipolar disorder and I’ve been told by others that I’m schizophrenic. Sometimes I’m not sure which to believe, and sometimes I believe I’m neither, that I’m simply a girl with issues, and attempting to put a diagnosis on my late night trembling and uncertainty and the colors I see floating around me is simply skating around the bigger issue, the fact that I’m fucked up and there’s nothing anyone can do to pull me out of it.

I feel so many things inside of me. So many worlds that keep on changing, shifting. So many elements that simply cannot or will not coexist in peace. I feel I am standing on the edge of a precipice, and all it will take is one step or stumble and I will fall into oblivion, and I can’t tell whether the other side of it holds peace or madness.

And sometimes I’m not sure I care which, if, when I emerge, I’ve gotten someplace I cannot currently see. Because from where I’m standing, all I see is confusion and misery. But it’s so hard to move.

—————

Sodalite fell into the abyss and Hematite inevitably followed. Away from ground, Hematite felt nothing but uncertainty and discomfort. She fell heavily through empty space and waited to land somewhere, anywhere – any matter would give her something more to grasp on than she currently had. Sodalite was calm and flowed on, as was her norm.

“Do you have anything in mind for the future?” Sodalite asked Hematite. “Anything you’d like to see, to feel, to experience?”

“I can’t think,” Hematite said. “All I want is ground.”

“As you wish,” Sodalite said, and a door appeared in the abyss. Sodalite flowed to it. “You know, Hematite, one day, you’re going to need to learn to take some risks. Trust the world around you to lead you to where you need to go.”

“I can’t trust this world,” Hematite said, “all I can trust is what I’ve always known to be constant.”

“And has anything truly remained constant?” asked Sodalite.

Hematite thought about it for a long moment. “I have.”

“You’ve tried, I’ll give you that. Has anything else?”

“No. Everything’s changed.”

“So why do you try so hard to stay the same?”

And she opened the door.

It had been a hard morning for Charlie, but it had led him to his favorite restaurant, a place by the lake that served breakfast food and beer. He sat alone by the window, staring at his menu as if he was making a decision. Really, he was trying not to think about his wife, Marjorie.

She’d told him she was going out with friends and would be back before midnight. She hadn’t come home.

He wasn’t sure whether he was more upset that she lied to him or that he’d learned to expect it.

The waitress walked over, humming along with some Carrie Underwood song that played from an unseen radio. She had blue eyes, blonde hair, and more curves than his muscle car. He thought she’d be his dream girl if he wasn’t so damn attached to Marjorie.

“What can I get for you today?” she asked with a familiar drawl. The corners of her lips tilted into a patient smile as she waited with a notepad and pen.

“Can I get the usual, but with beer?”

She shook her head. “We don’t serve beer until three.”

“Well, damn. Just the usual, then.”

“Pancakes, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and a side of fruit?” Marjorie had convinced him to stop eating so much bacon, because it was bad for his heart. She’d had a point – he had gone to the hospital on more than one occasion – but he was stubborn enough that even her good advice was something he wanted to directly defy.

“You know what, substitute bacon for the fruit.”

“A side of bacon instead of fruit? Done.”

“Make that two.”

The waitress raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “I’ll have that out for you as soon as I can,” she assured him before running off to do her waitress duties.

He couldn’t help but notice the way her ass swayed as she left. Mostly because he watched it.

Time always passes slower when you’re hungry and have to wait for your food. Charlie fiddled with his phone, double checking that he hadn’t missed a text from Marjorie. There was nothing new. He called her, but hit the end key before he heard the beep on her voicemail message. He counted the number of tables in the room, recounted the incidences Marjorie had lied to him, and generally grew more irritable as his stomach rumbled. Finally, he called Marjorie back, listened to her voicemail, and said, with a calmness he didn’t feel, “Marj, I love you, but we’re done.”

He tried to distract himself with a newspaper from a nearby table, but that worked about as well as the menu had. It was a relief to more than his hunger when his food finally came.

He was done. He was done with his beautiful, lying, disrespectful, fruit-inflicting angel of a wife.

He smiled at the waitress when she set his meal in front of him and inhaled the delicious scent of grease as it rose from the bacon. As he crunched into it, he remembered there was a life beyond Marjorie.

———

I cannot love without tears.

I do my best to hide my affections from myself. Or I do not pay attention until I’ve fully fallen. I’m not sure which.

But there are signs.

In moments of silence, it is you my mind focuses on. In times of noise, your rhythms break through the clatter and the song of you is forever stuck in my head. And when it finally leaves, Pandora just plays it again. I give up and put it on repeat.

And though I like this song, I cannot quite bear the constant struggle to believe you like mine too, to believe that even if I made it to the top 20 once, I won’t fade into obscurity as a one-hit wonder.

Every time I hear your song, I sing along. Every time I hear your song, it’s tinged with my sadness, with the conviction that one day, you will turn off your end of the radio and you will never hear me, feel me, know me again. And you will never care to. And I will be stuck with the echoes of your song forever and will only be able to hope the words fade enough that I cannot quite remember what it felt like to sing along, only that I once loved to.

For now, I love you. For now, I listen on repeat through my headphones so no one else knows you’re the song of the moment. I’m damn glad you don’t have a way to track your listeners, don’t know I dissect the music like a mystery novel looking for signs of my inadequacy.

I’m skilled at finding what isn’t there. I find hidden messages in the drumline, in the strums of the guitar, in the particular phrasing of the refrain that tell me I am not safe with this music playing in my ears. I believe them. I fall into a deep melancholy I will do my best to never mention.

I will cry. I may not cry now or in a week, but eventually, I will cry over the inevitability of this station shutting off on me.

Until then, I’ll crank up the volume and sing along.

I cannot love without tears, but it is always worth it.