Morgan's Lullaby: Part Two

   At 6:30 A.M., Morgan's phone starts to vibrate: time to get ready for school. For a brief moment, she considers skipping school, but the only thing worse to her than a building full of teenage assholes is a house full of fake family members. She throws herself out of bed with a grunt and proceeds with her daily routine. Shower, clothes, make-up, breakfast, bus. Not once does she see even a trace of her family, not that she normally does. Her little brother doesn't attend school yet, and both of her parents start work late in the day. Morgan is used to solitary mornings. She actually enjoys them; they are a comforting time period where she has zero distractions.
   
   The school day goes by in a blur. Morgan doesn't talk to anyone nor does anyone talk to her. She has never felt so publicly alone. The only objectives on her mind are to keep her head down and not let anyone know something is wrong. Once home, she hurries to her bedroom, locks the door, and closes the blinds. She doesn't want to see her family and have to fake being happy like she always does. Morgan can lie to anyone, but it hurts having to lie to her parents, even if they are inconsiderate jerks.

   By the end of the day, Morgan is worn out. All she can think about is the sweet escape of sleep, but she knows that sleep is not achievable in her current state. Night is when the memories attack, gnawing at her sanity. Normally, she is strong enough to fight them off, but not tonight. Tonight, Morgan is as defenseless as a newborn antelope on the African plain. She must be cautious, for she can be easily over taken by any malicious, bitter-sweet memory lurking in the depths of her mind. All of these things Morgan knows.
  
  "But how," Morgan thinks to herself, "can I escape this hell? This unrelenting pain?" 

   Then, without warning, a memory attacks. It rips at her with unanticipated strength. It is the memory of the first time Morgan saw her Nana sick, with obvious pain painted on her face. "Oh honey, I'm fine," her Nana had said, "Nana will be OK. I won't leave you." Morgan remembers clinging to this promise frivolously, praying for her Nana to stay with her. 

    As this memory slices through Morgan like a machete, hot tears begin to stream down her face. "I can't handle this," she screams in her mind, "I can't. I can't. I can't!"  Suddenly, a wave of calm engulfs her. She has concocted an escape. Her mother keeps a large bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet, and Morgan could easily sneak them into her room. "Can I really do this," she asks herself already knowing the answer. Yes, she could. Nothing is keeping her attached to this life anymore. What does she have to live for? To hope for? Her family is detached, she is horrifyingly awkward, and the only person that ever truly loved her is dead. 

  Morgan gets out from under her blankets and makes almost the same trek she had made the night before, but instead of turning  into her parents room, she turns into the bathroom. She turns on the lights and is shocked at what she looks like under the harsh, florescent lights. Her eyes are an unnatural shade of red and her skin is taunt from dried tears. Unable to look at herself any longer, Morgan pulls open the medicine cabinet and grabs the bottle of sleeping pills. Quickly, she stuffs them into her pocket and runs back to her room.   

  Once back in the safety of her room, a weird though crosses Morgan's mind. Should she write a suicide note? She'd never considered it before. She almost laughs at the idea of her parents finding the note next to her lifeless body. Would they pretend to be sad or show their relief that they don't have to deal with her anymore? She decides she could care less. "They don't deserve a suicide note," Morgan thinks bitterly, "They don't deserve closure!" With that, she thrusts a handful of irregularly shaped sleeping pills into her mouth and swallows. They take hold of her body quickly. Soon, she falls into a deep sleep, with her Nana's voice echoing in her mind saying, "I won't leave you, honey. I love you." 

    **Hey guys! That was Morgan's Lullaby: Part Two! I hope you liked it. There will be a part three, so get ready for that! It will be posted next Friday for "Fictional Friday." Although this isn't the last addition to the Morgan's Lullaby series, I thought I should explain my reasons behind writing it. I am writing this series to tell a story you guys might relate to and to tell you guys that if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself or anything like that, reach out to someone. Talk to someone about your problems. Anything. Just don't act on any bad thoughts. People do love you and care about your well-being. I have had bad thoughts before, trust me, but life does get better. You will find people that you care about and that care about you. I promise. I have never met you guys, but I care about you. So don't feel alone. Don't let negative thoughts prevail. If you can't find anyone else to talk to, and you are thinking about doing something bad, reach out to me. I'm extremely awkward and am bad at making people feel better, but I care. I hope this post can help someone out there. I really do. So thank you for reading it everyone!**

Death and All It Entails

     Hey guys. Today's topic is going to be a little depressing. Like I said in my first post, I'm going to be writing about things that occur in daily life. Sadly, death is one of those inevitable occurrences. I learned my classmate's father passed away today, and it got me thinking about how much of an impact death has on a person. I mean, think about. What has the equivalent power that death has?
   When I was little, I used to wonder why so many people worried and basically obsessed about death. Now I understand. Death is the ultimate unknown. No one knows what will happen after death, and one thing almost everyone agrees upon is that humans hate not knowing. We all crave control and knowledge. So to compensate for our lack of control over death, we worry about it. Plan for it. Anything to gain insight or peace of mind. 
   Personally, I've never experienced a close family death, so I have no sense of how I will react if someone close to me dies. I imagine I will be one of those people that never recovers, but I hope I'm not. Hopefully, I will be able to process death in a healthy way. That brings me to the other subject I wanted to talk about: How to deal with death healthily. Now you may be wondering how I could even contribute to this subject when I've never experienced it. What I did was talk to a few family members and friends to see what they had to say about it. So I'm not just spewing randomness. 
   The most important thing to know is that any feelings you have about death are normal. Everyone reacts completely different to a tragedy. Some people become overwhelmed and cry, while some people shut down and don't cry. So don't feel upset with yourself if you don't cry or become hysterical. I would also advise you avoid trying to rationalize the death. Death doesn't make sense, and it never will. I cannot stress that enough. You could spend a lifetime thinking of reasons why it should/shouldn't have happened. The best thing I can think of to do is to just let yourself accept it as soon as possible. Accept it happened, and do your best to keep that person's memory alive. Think of the happy memories you enjoyed with the person. Who wants to be remembered by their death instead of their life? To wrap everything up, my final piece of advice is this: just process everything in a way that you feel comfortable with.