When Life is Beautiful & Tragic

by NDC alumni, Alyssa Marie Gomez

I want to tiptoe into an amber tinted glass mirror
Ballerina footing as I pirouette into years ago
I want so badly to burn so many places to the ground
To allow blind rage to intoxicate me and fuel my revenge
The scenes are so vivid there I forget to call them memories
It’s like leaving a theater you never really wanted to go to
These memories feel as if they don’t belong to me, but maybe it’s me trying to convince myself that they aren’t

I’ve done the worst things to myself to try to leave this earth at my own hands I carried the cross of others who put this onto me
I never wanted to be this way
I hated others for changing me

My innocence faded into the darkness of the streets
Gangs fueled my ignorance by edging me on to go deeper and deeper into ignorance during my hiatus
The most surreal things occur like clockwork before your eyes
The things we think about at night when everyone is asleep
When it’s silent, and the emptiness of the room weighs on your chest
The faces we see, repeating like a DVD skipping
The voices we remember hearing, like an echo in our mind

It’s so much!!
It’s too much!!
The devil chooses to have a playground in my mind and does cartwheels around the people I’ve seen him take human form in
I don’t wanna remember this!!!
It doesn’t stop!!
I let out a silent cry to God and I know he can understands what I’m saying when I cannot form words
He heard my cry when I couldn’t allow a sound to escape

I look at where I am now
And I know God has been with me all along
That’s the only way to explain how I’m here
I live in a new city that’s huge
I’m thriving
I’m sober
I’m safe and protected in my home
I realize I made it out
I don’t have to live that way ever again, that’s in the years from before Freedom is where my happiness stems from

Alyssa Marie Gomez