I lay curled up in a scratchy, foreign bed staring at an empty fish tank filled with rolled up marijuana and bottles of Chardonnay. How could I be so stupid? Should I run? With one look at the pocket knife beside me, I quickly shot down that strategy. The condom, my pleading. The hospital, my depression. The pain killers, my failure. The therapy, my court dates. My life became a montage stuck on the pain because of a defective play button. Therapists, friends and family tried to fix my faulty VCR without success, so I lived with my life on pause―hid behind an oversized hoodie and slept in class because the night was when the nightmares came. I never thought I could get any better.
Then one day, WHAM! My journalism teacher slammed a composition notebook onto my desk. “I don’t want to know,” he said, “Just write.” That day, the pen transformed into the missing screw to my faulty VCR. The next year, I performed a poem releasing my thoughts in front of a large crowd. As I began speaking, my voice gradually grew until my soul gained its wings again. Once I finished, the crowd’s roar was deafening, but I couldn’t hear it. I stood with tears trailing my face proud that I could overcome something many girls never get over. Now I can press fast-forward to suppress the pain, stop to record it, and play to live through the montage of pain because a stick of black ink saved my life.