The Protection

Her red tipped fingernails grazed the paper as she wrote about life, unbelievable beliefs and other nonessential things. You're supposed to forgive and forget, but she could only re-live and to regress deeper into her own mind as she searched for answers she could answer herself. Her black boots and feet barely touch the ground as she reached higher to achieve her dreams, only for her parents to hot glue gun the worn boots to the floor, effectively stifling her creative freedom and locking her up in her own head. She wanted to chop off all of her hair to start a new but her friends liked her hair long so they had all the scissors. She wanted to wear black clothes and no makeup but her school all wanted to be the same so they gave her the school logo in a tattoo that burned her skin. And in order to protect herself, she tried to fall but she flew instead, a rope around her neck as she failed to apologize for a social ideal she couldn't fill. And they cried for her, alligator tears paving down their faces, cracked with happiness at their handiwork.