IT BEGINS
, 1995, 9:16 A.M.
A baby is born, c-section because she had a fever and they were worried.
Her body is red and she is crying, covered in blood.
Her mother holds her, glad to finally have her child after the nine months and six hour labor.
She is glad she is not blue, like her brother.
She is glad she is there, in her arms.
The baby won't walk for at least another year.
The baby won't talk for at least six months after that.
She is a bundle of potential, finally in the world.
She exists.
PART TWO
BEFORE AND AFTER
March 3, 2013, 11:39 P.M.
A girl sits in the dark, hiding from the nightmares.
Her hair is dark and unruly, like her father's.
Her nose is small and round, like her mother's.
She looks at her bony wrists and her tiny hands, crippled and wrinkled just at seventeen.
The joints aching like an old woman's, and no one seems to notice.
She doesn't know where they came from.
Her days are slowly deteriorating, she can feel it.
Like the acid eating away at her bitter insides.
She's already escaped death a few times now.
She knows it's only a matter of time.
She waits.
PART THREE
IT COMES TOGETHER; IT FALLS APART
January 18, 2020, 7:34 A.M.
A body lies broken, cold and dead on the ground.
It is pale and silent, covered in blood.
The time of death is recorded after it is discovered her heart is quiet.
The accident is reported with diagrams indicating her collapsed lungs.
It is counted as a tragedy, the life ending so soon, at just 24.
The funeral is full of mourners, as it should be.
It is a closed casket, her body too mangled even for viewing in that false, plastic perfection.
Her mother cries. Her father doesn't say a word.
Her brother retreats further inside himself.
People move on, living their lives.
She has left behind only memories.
She ceases.
