She bangs her head against the stucco walls, hoping to dislodge some of her childhood and shake loose the itch of fever within her. She paints black nail polish over her anxieties, and smothers her depression with multi-colored pills. She’s dragging her feet on the ground; she feels the force pushing against her. Her blisters never harden into calluses, she’s always oozing until lymph turns to blood. A sharp sting accompanies her with every step. There’s a pain under her breasts, right in her rib cage. Every breath she takes doesn’t kill her, but she’s suffering. She’s a wretched creature. She’s made herself this way, she chooses to drag herself along the stucco walls. She finds comfort in the jagged edges, the ugliness of the texture. The smooth walls drive her insane, perfection warped- the smoothness gives light to her jagged edges.
She feels the fever coming to a boil within her; she itches to howl and storm like the creature she is, to draw blood and be violent. She burns to let the rage and bitterness drown her lungs until she bursts into flame, only to be extinguished by the storm that comes from the distance.
And what a storm it is, and she embraces it like a mother, her mother, who is calm before the rage comes crashing down and who leaves destruction in its wake. She’s afraid, but she returns the howl and lets nature devour her and not dismantle her, but rip her apart. She feels the wind blow over her, wrap around her, and she feels the thunder reverberate within her head, and-
She breathes once. Twice. A long exhale.
She opens her eyes to the stucco walls in front of her, palms indented with their pattern. The ugly silence in the room is interrupted by her harsh breathing. Yet in the strange calm, she hears the thunder, and the vibrations travel their way through her bones and into her ears. She looks out of the window to see the wind picking up, the branches of the oak trees swaying, bowing to mother nature. She sees the dark, bruised colored clouds gathering.
She braces herself against the stucco walls, and watches the sky with rapture.
The storm, at long last, is here.