NEVER FORGETTING
CELINDA SANTILLAN
Never Forgetting. Copyright © 2012 by Celinda Santillan.
For Angelic Brother
I will never forget you
Table of Contents
Prologue
*Poems*
Dark Day
Visions
Lady in White
Midnight Moon
Mirror, Mirror
The Last Dream
Traumatized
Sweet Sixteen
Confrontation
My Immortal Beloved
Audience
Fear of Hidden Secrets
Moving Into
*Songs*
What You Feel
I See You
Way Out
Once and For all
Reach Inside Me
Too Long
Heartbroken
Accident
When The Time Comes Too Late
Acknowledgements
ONYX: Diamond Trilogy Book One
Detachment: Elim Trilogy Book Two
PROLOGUE
I ran as fast as I could.
The cries I heard came from only one room.
The only room that lead to the back.
I never imagined the shock of what I would see.
I only heard the faint cries, and screams, behind the covered glass door.
I rushed. Nothing could have held me back.
I know now that it was a mistake.
No matter what how fast, or how quick I rushed.
I was too late.
The screams I hears came from my mind.
Something told me to hold on.
Those whispers were long dead when I finally noticed what was in front of me.
I kneeled down thinking that I had time.
I had time to relieve him, but no.
I pulled him out of the pool.
I tried to help him.
I sware I did, but he was ripped from my arms as my mother held him tight.
Her cries where worse than mine.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
She turned to me, words I will never forget.
“What have you done,” She said.
I thank her for that.
Those words made me realize that it wasn’t too late.
I took him out of her hands and ran to the front of the house.
I gently put him on the soft grass he used to love to play in.
I performed CPR while my neighbor called the ambulance.
I saw my mother hold a religious candle to her chest while she collapsed on the floor.
I didn’t care about though.
I just cared about him.
I left my mother in the care of my visiting grandmother as the paramedics rushed to do their jobs.
I was only fourteen.
My birthday was five days away.
I was alone.
I called my father’s company to have him rush to the house for my mother.
I was alone.
I was surrounded by new reporters once at the hospital.
I was alone.
I prayed to the god I never believed in.
I was alone.
I was only fourteen.
At that age, I found out my brother of two years died.
I was alone through it all.
For the first time in my life, I truly hated the breath I breathed.
I hated the pity eyes of the doctors, of the nurses, of the people that walked passed me.
I knew then, that my life was over.
My younger brother who I raised, and loved like a son was gone.
I had nothing else to live for.
I still feel alone
POEMS
DARK DAY
Deep in thought
I reach for light
No colors saved,
For the dark day
Deep in thought
I search for myself
No place left
For the dark day
Deep in thought
I try to dream a better life
No dream
For the dark day
Deep in rest I sleep
No more me
For the dark day
VISIONS
Do you see it?
I can.
It’s the endless dreams at night that haunt me.
My hand itches to lift that knife, and end it.
My stomach growls for the pills that can make it all stop.
I have pneumonia.
My mother cries.
I don’t.
She’s scared that I would die too.
I wish for it.
Maybe then I can live peacefully without any guilt.
Maybe then I can let go.
My opposing mind tells me to end it all.
There’s only so much grief I can take.
I’m numb, but the house suffocates me to no end.
Do you think I should?
End it all?
No.
I can’t.
He stops me.
I know he does.
I saw him only once.
He has his own angel protecting him.
She dresses in that long Victorian gown that covers her up well.
She loves him. I saw it in her smile.
He didn’t smile like he used to though.
He was sad.
I know why.
He doesn’t want me to go wherever he’s going.
But I don’t want him to leave me behind.
I miss him.
Everyone has finished mourning, but I can’t.
I’m so empty.
So lost.
I need help.
I want help.
These visions in my dreams are getting to my head.
Suicide just seems like the perfect escape.
LADY IN WHITE
Her dress flows deeply low, at night
Her hair is pale
Beauty; one-of-a-kind
Her stare is soulless, but thoughtful
So pure, yet so clear
During the storming blue moons
She walks at night
Just the light of flame, attracts her sight
Marvelous beauty, lady of white
Pale to stone, goddess of light
Same girl who haunts at night,
Lady of night, lady in white
MIDNIGHT MOON
“I hate you.”
I whisper to the moon above me.
The moon gives me light to see my reflection in the pool.
It triggers the visions that I hate to have.
How can I follow my brother’s wish,
When everything seems against it?
Today, earlier, I went back to school.
I don’t have pneumonia anymore.
I hate it too.
The whispers, the stares.
The constant pity eyes that I wanted to slap away.
I hate it all, dear Midnight Moon.
You understand why, right?
I’m not dead. I’m alive.
I have my fresh cuts to prove it.
Midnight Moon,
I had only so much to handle in one day.
I know no one ment to, but they all reminded me what happened.
Their silence reminded me how much I’ve changed.
I don’t like anymore.
I don’t trust anyone.
I sneak out of my house just to go to the crime scene.
I walk around with no purpose.
I was never like this.
I was girly.
I was happy.
I had the life
people envied so much.
Now, the money I get I burn at midnight.
What is money to me now?
Shopping doesn’t make me happy.
Only the thought that one day I will be with him.
That thought alone is enough to keep me going.
I don’t mind waiting for death.
I don’t mind pretending that I’m okay.
MIRROR, MIRROR
It’s not me.
“It can’t be me!” I yell.
No one hears me, because no one’s home.
I scratch my face with my long nails.
I can’t believe it.
That fifteen year old girl inn all black,
With dead eyes is me.
Who am I?
What have I become?
Mintues pass.
I’m no one.
I’m just a spec on the perfect lie my parents are making up.
No one in this house is fine.
No one is happy.
All we do is argue,
Cry alone in our corners,
And say goodnight like perfect strangers.
There’s this secret though that many of us refuse to see.
That young girl alone in her own bedroom,
The girl in the bedroom a door down from mine is suffering too.
She’s only nine.
She feels abandoned and hated by us.
That’s not the case though.
We all suffer differently.
We all need time to cope.
One day I hope she understands.
I love my sister,
I really do hope that she understands.
THE LAST DREAM
If I can't wake from this dream
I will smile and try to believe
That the world is safe
That she's still breathing again
If I smile and don't believe
I will crash and die
In this dream
Don't let me wake to where...
A storm stuck inside
Let me breathe no more
Let me not wake this flight
Let me bleed
don’t let me live
She's not breathing
I'm not breathing
TRAUMATIZED
I felt the suffocation.
I thought that it was okay.
I was coping in my own way, but I was laughing.
I was surrounded by my family members at a party,
Right?
But no.
They threw me in the pool.
I was under for a couple of seconds.
No one noticed it.
My past tortures came in flashbacks at the speed of lighting.
I left them all in the pool, giving them a quick excuse.
I rushed to the restroom and gasped for breath.
The knot in my throat wouldn’t let me breath without crying.
Yet I can’t.
I can’t cry.
I was only turning sixteen at the time.
SWEET SIXTEEN
They asked me for pink.
I said, “Purple.”
They asked me for decorations.
I yelled for elegance.
Then they asked me for my special wants.
I said, “I want to see my brother before the party.”
So there I was, dressed in white as the limo took me and my friends to the cemetery.
I moved around until I was out of the hummer limo.
My leg took to the gravesite, but my heart took to six feet under.
I didn’t know that a close friend followed me silently and snapped pictures.
I didn’t know that my other was there next to me.
All I knew is that a year and nine days, he left me.
For the first time in public I cried.
I cried because I didn’t want the fancy party that cost my parents so much.
I didn’t want the wedding planner behind it.
I didn’t want the stupid limo everyone fell in love with.
I didn’t ask for the thousands of dollars my parents spend to make me forget.
All I ever wanted is him.
I can’t live knowing that it was my fault.
If I was more careful then he would have been here.
If I wasn’t as bratty as those girls from TV,
Then everything would have been better.
They say we turn into a woman at sixteen.
I turned into one at fourteen.
I lost everything.
Love, emotions, self-reflection.
I lost it all.
Only adults can feel that in my eyes.
I stand up and walk back to the limo.
In my mind I whisper, “Happy birthday to me.”
CONFRONTATION
“I need help!” I yell to the parents who only seem to understand under those terms.
I finally have had enough.
I want to move on.
I can’t live like this anymore.
They don’t listen though.
They say I’m fine.
I guess I’m a good actress after all.
When I tell them about my dark thoughts,
My haunting nightmares,
The constant wish for death to take me,
They finally listen.
Not even two days later does she show up.
That she is named Rosa.
She diagnosed me with Dark Depression.
It’s hit my parents hard.
They finally saw how effected I was.
But then the lies piled up.
They told Rosa many lies.
They said that they let me go out.
They didn’t.
They said that they never blamed me for my brother’s death.
My mother may not remember, but she did.
They said I don’t act unusual.
I did.
They also said that I wasn’t afraid of the pool.
I am.
Although, the last one they might not know.
One more.
They said I never attempted to commit suicide.
I did. Twice in fact.
I held the knife to my heart.
I spread the pills in front of me.
But I never did it.
He stopped me.
My angelic brother.
He just doesn’t want me to go with him.
MY IMMORTAL BELOVED
I can never see no more
As I try to breath and ignore
Pulls me down with a burn
My cancer is black as poisonous snow
It eats me alive once more
Bury me alive
If it cares
Scream inside
Till there's no more air
Let me be before I'm gone
Tell me if its heart is gone
Don't let me sink under
Feel of vain and hunger
It's eyes stare back
I feel the gardens rise
They take me alive
Feed me to the mice
With vicious eyes
It still stares with despair
Lost in its eyes
I lose fright
Let me be!
I yell
Let me go! I beg.
It listens and turns
His cold still burns
"Love is not fair, I told you it was not fair"
He yelled in whispers
I cried and cried
Knowing my death was our love
My immortal beloved breathes as he releases me
Goodbye, I cry for the last time
AUDIENCE
I stand in front of everyone as the cheers erupt.
The light doesn’t let me see, but I love it.
Performing on stage is the light to my life.
I can be someone else.
I can feel other emotions.
I can
live without a care or fear or guilt.
Do you hear that?
It’s peace.
I bow and leave center stage.
My VA director is so amazing.
She gave me so many opportunities to be part of my new home.
Away from South Florida.
For the first time in two years, I feel alive.
I feel so close to my cast members.
They all appreciate me.
They all give me motivation.
I have made something of my life.
I’m president of many clubs.
I’m in main stage productions.
I write songs.
I love it here.
Then I hear the mumbles of the crowd.
Many parents congratulate their children for their performance.
Mine are nowhere in sight.
They left.
I see how every parent here is so proud of their children,
While mine think that theatre is a waste of time.
Don’t they realize that I may be fixed, but I’m still broken?
I need this to take my mind away from the thoughts that might come back.
I need this to feel something other than grief and sorrow.
No, they don’t understand.
That’s just too bad.
I’m fine though, I always am.
I forgive them now.
Like I said before, they only have so much time to cope.
FEAR OF HIDDEN SECRETS
I walk around this chamber of the dead.
I'm lost in the stabbing pain I regret,
"It's quite lovely," once he said.
But I knew better, my thoughts never betray.
The coldness of my hidden secret, challenges me to the better keepment.
The safe of the lost, in these walls of dried blood.
I shiver in dark, not cold, not fright.
I never wish for such a hell of a whole to be the place I call home.
Ooooo
I hear it again as the house craves for the innocence of the storms.
Let it go!
My legs drop to the sound of screams.
The sounds of pleading mercies that was deceit
Oblivious to the pounding of liquid making its way under the door.
The home I call home has taken yet another of this society's soul.
"It is quiet lovely," I heard him say.
We have been together till the end, but something claimed his time.