Sage had bubblegum bouncy curls that were currently suspended by a foamy blue-green weight.

Her breaths were seized; rationed oxygen she contained in her delicate cage of a chest.

Her entirety submerged in the cool beach water; her back, butt and legs slightly scratched by seashells, rocks, sand; eyes wide open, gazing upward onto the blurry faded rose sky. She contently watched the tiny bubbles from her nose float gently atop the surface, feeling the familiar burn for more air in her lungs.

She ignored it, it felt so calm here, the outside noise barely brushing her ears.

It felt home here, the pressure from the underwater waves cocooning her akin to a womb would an embryo.

She let her body be swayed by the arms of the beach.

Moments later, she couldn’t deny her lungs’ aching and pushed herself up, breaking the spell.

As soon as she surfaced, she awoke with a small shudder.

Instead of luke-warm water, her body was bathed in cotton layered with bleeding blinking red and hot pink neon lights burninginto her retinas from outside,while her face was splashed in the familiar shadow the building cast with help from a flickering yellow streetlight towering above.

Here, when she looked outside the window, the familiar ghost lateral lines from the blinds created prison like bars on her skin.

She blinked sandy sleep out of her eyes and felt sick to her stomach.

She was tired of being in this grimy city; the smog fogging her from seeing her own self clearly.

When she looked at others below, she saw monsters.

Black holes for mouths, sucking life source, and the light she desperately is cultivating. Smooth hands to grab you in and nails to gouge your heart from yourself.

She’d rather be on an island of one than fend for her life amongst modern zombies, sucking bloodlife from one another.

She turned away from the window, desperate for sleep once more.

Sage found herself on her beloved island once more.

But, she was looking at barren, cloudy white eyes blinking back her. It’s skin looking sagged and veiny, the selfish belly bloated, appearing to be almost protruding comically outwards, but the remaining body looking starved, as if the reserves from its’ spoils were hoarded just to one space, refusing to nourish its body’s other parts.

She looked closer downward, into the water and realized at the mouth of the pool, she was staring into her own reflection.

…

Sometimes, we are blind to the fact that:

• Our interpretation of the world causes how we want to interact with it.
• And we are so sensitive to the evilness to others, that sometimes we fail to look at evilness that can be burrowed underneath our skins.