She’s high again, but this time it’s different.
She runs from the house, two different shoes on her feet.
Her backpack’s filled with that shit.
That shit she told me to steer clear of.
Wet, a hard taste to get off your tongue according to my once loving, over-protective sister.
Angel Dust numbs more than just taste buds.
We lock the doors and set the alarm. There’s not much solace in that. If the Angel Dust wants in, it’ll scratch at the walls of her brain until she busts the windows out. Mom tells me to get some sleep. She walks tall and pretends she isn’t terrified, for me and maybe for herself too.
Three AM, the hour of the wicked, I lie awake. Restful sleep is a pipe dream.
I can hear the creak of the back gate from my bedroom window. The follicles on my neck turn themselves inside out. She shuffles there on the back porch. She sings legato, and calm.
An unwelcome calm, because what follows is reminiscent of a beast with a thousand mouths, all screeching, all ravenous and poised to consume.
It’s the Angel Dust. It uses my sister to sing to me, it wants me dead.
The cool blade is where it’s always been, under my pillow, safe. I shut my eyes tight and forget that I’m a prisoner to a drug I’ve never ingested. I will do what I have to. I will keep my life.
I fall asleep to the sound of a horrible lullaby but I find momentary peace.
I wake in the morning to the sound of sirens. I meet my mother in the hallway.
“What is it?” I plead weakly.
“It’s over now, Ashlyn,” she says.
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