lissa looked towards the front door where the street light glowed yellow next to the telephone pole. she looked over her shoulder and watched her mom's bedroom door to make sure it didn't open. she watched over her shoulder the whole time she tiptoed down the hall. she knew how to unlock the front door and close it behind her and she looked through the front door down the hall to make sure mom's bedroom door was still in the same place. it was! and now it was time to go!

her feety…

Nobody told you there’d be rocks in your back and rapids at your heels when you went down that river, but I’m betting you had to know.

You went down the river on your back, looking for some eddy to push you out safe into the currents, but eddy’s don’t eddy just because you said so. Your body seeks delta, riding silt flats, ignorant of the fish that pass you by.

You do not count the cuts and there is no one to bind your wounds, ease the bruises that you had to know were coming.…

laptop charged? check.

cappucino, tall? check.

android off? *wrinkles nose* fine.  check.

opens laptop, logs in, resists urge to facebook. tucks legs up under self and stares at the empty screen.

the cursor blinks back at her.

it's still blinking.

she looks around and tries not to get too interested in the people around her because she'll start thinking about the people and why they've come to slouch in a bookstore cafe. what she was really supposed…

she tried for the third time to convince herself that quitting is not an option, but neither is failure.

she tried for the third time to take long, cleansing deep breaths, allowing the gorgeous garnet blood to circulate to legs that want to walk, cords that want to scream, tailbone that keeps the poison, head that hears, sees, knows everything except how to get free. she thinks it might be the last time, this round, she'll undertake the make to move on. if she can't do it this time,…