Excerpt: Girl Nevermore

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Girl Nevermore is my dark contemporary young adult novel based on real life events. When I was much younger, my best friend at the time tried to take her own life while sitting next to me in class. She went to the bathroom with the pass that hung by the door, was gone for a while, and came back a completely different person.

She slowly started fading away as she sat next to me.

The image of her eyes haunted me for almost a decade, and I still remember the look she gave me to this day, but I've grown up a lot since then. While the helplessness I felt in that moment used to cause me anxiety, I've realized I'm much stronger now and much more sympathetic because of it.

Thankfully, my friend is still alive, but some people do not get second chances like she did. I've lost a lot of people - a lot of good people - along the way, and I cannot imagine how it would have been to lose her in that moment.

Girl Nevermore's story grew from that single moment, and the thoughts and feelings that I had after. I never truly grasped how much it affected me until later on in life. But events like that change you.

If you are in the mood for a dark story, Cooper's journey is full of life lessons, things that took me a lot longer than her to realize. Today, I am sharing a small piece of Girl Nevermore with you. Cooper finds the journal that her twin sister, Kayla, had been keeping. Over the course of the book, she reads her sister's writing. Kayla never seemed so alive, and then ... Well, I'll let you read to find out the rest. Enjoy the excerpt from Kayla's found journal below:

We pulled into the park, stealing drinks from the flask he keeps in his glove compartment. We leaned against the side of his car, passing it back and forth, him taking bigger gulps than me.

When the sprinklers came on, I was already a little light-headed, feeling freer than I had in a long time. I kicked off my shoes and ran into the grass barefoot, laughing as water soaked through my jeans, my shirt, everything. The grass squelched between my toes, and I watched him watching me. His dark eyes never left my body.

It felt blissful, perfect.

Trent and I don’t talk much. There’s not much to say. We just are. We’re two different people who are from separate parts of the universe. But when we collide, our worlds smash together with such fire I can barely breathe. I want to take the feeling he gives me and bottle it up, keep it for whenever I need it.

This kind of perfection never lasts a lifetime. I’m not stupid. But that’s why I’m soaking it all in. I take every chance I can get with him to make up for all the insignificant moments that will happen later. Because as long as I live, I will never meet anyone who makes me feel as alive as Trent does now.

I spun around in the middle of the field until the stars collapsed in on themselves, blending together into one blurring ball of light. I wanted to kiss that sky, get sucked up into it and dance forever.

When I stopped, the world kept moving around me. Trent marched right through the sprinklers, dropped the flask in the field, and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed me with such an intensity I thought I would melt right into his skin.

That’s how he makes me feel, like I could become something bigger than myself. I’ve never felt that kind of power before. I grinned the whole way home, wondering how I got so lucky, but also wondering how I was going to keep this a secret.

Because I want Trent to be mine and just mine. I don’t want to share any of these moments with anyone else. They are too beautiful, too enormous. And I’m afraid if I tell someone, they might become a little bit smaller, and that would ruin the magic we have now.

My Own Regrets

Is it too late to take it back?

Dripping blood from mangled flesh

Hanging upside down

Deep, solid puddles of the blackest red

Is it too late to take it back?

Your wrists in mine, broken with a twist

Crackled screams as your ribs caved in

The blackened bruises already showing

Is it too late to take it back?

Flesh singed with a flick of a flame

Putrid smells of rotting ash

Drifting pieces, melting off, disintegrating

It’s too late to take it back.

Your body’s cold, numb to my touch

It shows the years of my own regret

Hanging upside down, tied up and beaten

Throat split, hanging open in useless flaps

The flames lick upwards, breaking everything

The horror and nightmare of every sound

Tormented screams echo inside me

I grind my fingertips into my own flesh

It’s too late, much too late

But I’m still sorry just the same.

-----

Sometimes it feels like I'm flailing, falling, looking for a place to grab hold.  The endless air drifting above and below me.  It's not a free fall, no, much slower.  Much less fun.

Though every once and awhile, the words form around me and start to make sense.  Even if the poetry doesn't come out right, it makes my brain settle.  The ground comes back underneath my feet and I begin to climb again.  No one is hurt, no one suffered.  The feeling that pulsated through my brain is now on paper, some of the darkest or lightest words I may have ever written sprawled before me.  Is it worth it to display myself so publicly?  Will they get what I'm originally speaking of?  Or will some English teacher twenty years from now stumble across my work and teach it as a metaphor of something that is so far off base, so far removed from the original point?

Artwork stuns me, sometimes.  Baffles me and makes me feel so small and huge at the same time.  The overwhelming feeling is also underwhelming - the world is at my fingertips, but I'm floating hundreds of miles away.  May the window to my soul make someone else reflect on their own, may the opening of my words make someone's pulse resonate with mine.

This is me.  This is not me.

It's all very existential.  And that's my mood:  Existential.

Lost Soul

estherase photos on flickr

The twisted bones that curled together to form fingers reached into the beetle’s body.  A bloodied bone from some other small creature lay to the side, wielded as a weapon against this beautiful black, green beetle.  Its fingers were sharp, like serrated knifes,and with ease, the fingers flicked the exoskeleton away.  Pieces of green oozing blood pooled underneath the body.  The bloody substance stuck between each piercing finger, dripping around the beetle like snot on a cold winter’s day.

As the bones plunged themselves deeper into the thick skin,the beetle let out one last sigh of breathe before shuddering, dead.  The hands curled around the heart, still warmwith the last beat.  One finger poked inside the heart, wrapping the arteries around its tip.  It torn and shred at it until half of the organ was outside the body, the final vein snapping off with a sickening pop.

Its mouth opened.  God, please, no.  And the teeth closed around the flesh, tearing through the soggy, metallic mess. I tasted it in its teeth, my teeth. I felt it as it slid down its throat, my throat.  And I watched it fall through the gnarled cracks of my body, landing on the sidewalk and oozing out its remaining green blood.

When the ghastly skeleton had its full, it flew upwards into the sky.  The wings beat like hummingbirds, but silent.  Fast and furious, it flew through trees, barely dodging leaves.  If I could throw up, I would.  And then its eyes would land on something else, another creature to mangle, and off we would go.

Being trapped in a gremlin’s body with no control, seeing all the awful things it eats… or rather, doesn’t with all the cracks and holes in its body… feeling everything, tasting it all.  This was hell, and I could only assume that I was a doomed and lost soul.

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This prompt was created by Bliss Morgan who does "Nightmare Fuel" (aka "Write Terrible Things with Me").  She does one every single day - and I have, sadly, been unable to keep up between work and editing and my brand new PS3 (darn those video games).  This this image struck me, so I had to.

Also, I have a giveaway for Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall.  Check it out!

Dark, Pretty Things

The world was not meant

To gaze upon such light

Darkness prevails throughout the night

If meant, there’d be more stars

More pieces and parts

To make our eyes view shapes

There’d be less creatures, sounds

Howling at the moon

Less nightly, dark things

More sunshine, light from within

If the world was meant

To gaze upon such light

There’d be no fear

Of those dark, desperate things

But no passion, desire

Nothing to motivate the light

To work, adjust, conquer

But sometimes, unseen

Unknown, is the beauty

In those forgotten places

Pieces of the darkness left behind

To show the world how grand

Such mystery, vastness contained

Within dark, pretty things.

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I used to write poetry a lot when I was younger - to help deal with my SAD (yes, it's a real thing - don't believe me?  Try living in cold weather where it's dark, snowy and rainy for 6 months out of the year and you'll understand).  I've since decided that my poetry isn't really worth sniffing about - but hey, attempts are attempts are attempts, and maybe someone would like it - out there, in the darkly lit places.  :)