I was born with buzzing in my head. At first I thought bees. I am good at building honeycomb-walls. Little, sticky bits of ache slip through. But most of the happy grows wings to flutter away. It’s easier to leave than stay. I am not honeycomb-shaped. I am no shape at all. It can’t be bees. My mouth has never dripped liquid-sugar. More like oil spills. Still underneath-tacky. Prism-meniscus, bouncing light across its own surface. Things that are pretty to look at, but toxic once swallowed. Spilt-oil. Now that’s a thought. Maybe I have a leak. Engine-ruptured. Hoses, tangled and bursting. Shadow-sludge, dripping off grey matter. Then again. Oil cleans. At some point I would have been grace-filled. Well-kept. And I’m all sacrilege. Polluted. That doesn’t work. Something else. Buzzing. Thrumming. Ceaseless. But also phantom. Could be a hologram. That could fit. Substance-lacking. An idea. Haunting. All electric-shock, humming across my cognitive-cage. High voltage. Explosion-poised. Ready. The only flaw there is the amount of power it would take to sustain that type of operation. I am energy-spent. More of a frayed extension cord than dynamic force. Strong enough to shock but not enough for a constant surge. Like the broken fan-blade throwing everything off kilter. Tick, tick, clank. A window-unit AC. Not a new model. But the ones from a few decades back. Constant-rattle of hot air pulsing against busted metal, cooling-coil. Antiquated, useless. I function at 1,000 BTU. Max capacity. It’s so fucking depressing. Can’t keep up. Never enough. And then I’m crying. So now there’s the possibility of low-power electricity jumping against the rapid current of tears making a quick trek from my eyes to my collar-bones. I’m getting off-track. Track. Trek. And then it hits me. The droning, purring, buzzing vibration that never leaves. My depression owns a treadmill.

Mud, it drags her down, she claws and gasps, the filth enters her mouth, drowns her lungs.

Still she kicks, screams, reaches for the sun above her. She wants to escape, to lie, to pretend she isn’t dying.

They threw her into the waters, disgusting and full of trash. It was where all unwanted things are tossed. They gave her the power though, the power to escape.

She merely had to reach the surface, to stay afloat, to fight her way achingly to the shoreline.

If she can, then she is free.

From the pain, the judgement, the life of a slave.

Too long did she pretend it was normal, too long she never ventured forth her questions.

When she finally found her voice, they threw stones, whipped her and in the end, they did the worst thing imaginable.

They left her alone, they left her to die.

In the blinding sun she is dragged into muck so foul, and a smell of rot and decay surrounds her.

Soon her limbs will cease moving, her eyes will glaze over. Flies will pick at her rotting flesh.

Like so many thrown away, she will be a floating corpse.

Such is life in those who are uncaring, unfeeling. For those who run from all the pain.

She doesn’t have the strength, she loses her battle, the layers of garbage wraps around her body, pulling her further beneath the dirty waters. She is dead.

It lasts only a moment, a terrifying moment of unfeeling lifeless existence.

An arm splashes through the dirty water, a warm hand encircles her wrist, she has one last chance. She blinks.

Her hand grabs hold, and she kicks once more, it’s painful, each muscle burns. She must escape, she must get away from the grime. She is pulled to the surface; she opens her mouth coughing and hacks up sludge. The person who pulled her up is gone, but a feeling a warmth stays on her skin, a light touch of life.

She has new energy, she swims towards the shore, somehow it is closer than it was before.

Her hands find the sand and rocks. Bleeding, covered in filth, she drags herself onto land.

Her breath coming in heaving gasps, barely living, but she has escaped the darkest depts of death. It starts to rain.

Cool freshwater rolls across her tender flesh, washing away the blood, the slime. Tears burn her eyes, she pushes herself up, on shaking legs she takes her first steps on new land.

She isn’t whole, not yet, she isn’t clean, but the rain continues to cleanse her. Each step brings her further away from the dark waters behind her, from a past so vile it killed her.

The whispers of the people who harmed her are far away, the bruises are fading, and her body was being washed in a purifying shower. She smiles, the first of many. She had to run, to run far away. To live, she escaped.

Her small steps change, from timid to strong leaps, soon she is running freely, laughing and alive.

You can’t always escape the darkness in life, but you can run towards the light. So, she will keep on running, she isn’t ready to die.