POP! She snaps off the cap. She caresses the orange bottle without the white top and tips the depression pills into her starving hand. She's starving. Starving for those depression pills and painkillers. She swallows the capsules while overlooking the label that says "use as directed". When the doctor signed over the paper and prescribed the medicine, he didn't expect this. I didn't expect this. Bottles, pills, my pain and my tears are scattered along the floor where she walks on wobbly legs. Talking through slurred speech as if she's back in infancy. She wrecked everything I saw as right. Everything I saw as safe. I had to play the role of a mediator at the age of 14. Trying to come between her love affair with capsules and her overdosed mind. Going through 20 plus pills in one day, she claims... She screams she needs more. I had to soldier up. I had to stiffen up my lip when all I wanted to do was cry. I locked myself in my security. I locked myself in my room to not witness the scene of mayhem, the scene of destruction that's unfolding on the outside. The bottom of the bare bottle is her only friend. That's her lover. I'm tired of putting this situation under a cover. Sweeping it under the mat where troubles are supposed to just disappear. She sits with pills and a bottle of gin. Yeah man, she's at it again. But it's not the first second third fourth or fifth... Time. Going through life with blurred vision is her favorite scenery instead of actually seeing me. It only takes one more and she begins to faint. This is the only image my heart can paint. She falls to the floor and lays there as if she's pulse less. What I see looks like a crime scene without the yellow tape. Yellow tape says "Do Not Cross" for all to see clearly. But she crossed that line and doesn't intend to look back. She flirts with death as if she's committing adultery. She pops each and every single pill. She shows more love to the orange bottle than she does her own family. She grabs kitchen utensils. She grabs only the sharpest knives and threatens to take herself out of everybody else's lives. She doesn't think those skin and bones belong to her. Back then, she lived 5 blocks from the school she never graduated from. Giving it up to all the guys that gave her looks. To all the guys that lied and said they loved her. Tears pour down my face as her half-conscious screams pierce the midnight air that the darkness engulfs and holds. Her half dead screams say she wants to leave this Earth. Take herself out of the Earths equation. Leave the Earths tight grasp and become buried 8 feet under it. She threatens to rest for eternity with her eyes sowed. Do you hear it? Do you hear her heart shattering screams? Do you hear her ear drum busting screams on the inside? Do you hear it? Probably not but that's all that I hear every time I think. That's what I hear every time I blink. The more I think about it, the more the screams are amplified. Causing me to crumble up and sob into my hands that have experienced all my tears. I scream through a clenched jaw and tight fists. Yelling at the stars that over watch my pain and ask God to give me strength. When ever I'm about to enter my house knowing she's waiting for my arrival, I pray to God that I don't witness the same scene again. I wouldn't wish it on the whole worlds enemy. I'm begging myself to forgive her but the flashbacks still appear. It's like I have my eyes wide open while I'm wide awake in my own nightmare. When ever I write a poem like this, my paper bleeds! And my heart, strains. My pen writes down words I can't speak, words I didn't even know I knew myself. Scraping across red lines articulating everything I had to deal with. You can say I'm exaggerating, you can call me a drama queen call me whatever. But none of you could possibly stomach what I've witnessed. My tears rolling down my grimacing face. My poems, she is them. My thoughts, she's the ruler. My tear ducts, she owns them. Every time I think about it, my heart gets wrung out like my drenched pillow case that soaked up my sorrow on those nights that she tore off caps and emptied pills down her throat filling her stomach and emptying her mind. The pills messed her up. They messed her up severely. Everyday I wondered if my dad would have to come home to half a bed of cold empty bedsheets! I just want my original mom back! I want my old mom back. I want it where she couldn't let go of me, holding me tight, clutching me and not letting go like when I was 5. I want her back. But once that pill abuse was conceived, there's no turning back. Because when I see her, I don't see the woman that gave birth to me, I don't see the woman that laid me in my crib, I don't see the woman that claimed she loved me. I see the woman that called me a mistake! I see the woman said she should've aborted me. I see.... I see a stranger. Do you hear it? Do you hear the heart shattering screams? Do you hear the ear drum busting screams on the inside? Do you hear it? Do you hear mine?