Kaleidoscopes and Beaches.

My entire life has been spent inside of a kaleidoscope.

Figuratively, of course.

Constant scenery changes, flashes of colors, blurs of light. A beautiful, never-ending chaos.
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One day, I woke up from a deep sleep. I looked around the room, blurry-eyed and squinting - noting the sunlight eerily peering through the blinds, spilling over the dark hardwood floor. I smelled coffee being brewed in the next room by a man whose existence I positively loathed. The smell of whiskey and desperation littered the air inside of the bedroom. I was a metaphorical asthmatic, choking on the lies and assaults that incessantly filled the air. I was a prisoner in my own home, and a walking pile of bones without emotions. It was time; time to breathe again.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I noted a shattered mirror strewn across the bedroom floor. Amongst the jagged pieces, I didn't recognize the girl looking back at me. Frail, sunken in, and bloody. A battered refugee, a ghost.

I pulled a denim shorts over my badly battered legs, and slid my feet into my muddied barn boots. I fumbled through the mountain ranges of dirty laundry, reaching for his white, barbecue-stained XL shirt. I gingerly pulled it over my head, avoiding the cuts and cuff burns engorged in my wrists. Tripping over the pistol on the floor, I made my way to the nightstand. Rifling through the condoms and the empty Copenhagen tins, I eventually found my fake lipstick case that housed the three one hundred-dollar bills that I had hidden away over the past few weeks. I shoved it in my underwear. A voice bellowed.

"Hey, I made coffee. Come get it before it's gone."

My stomach lurched, and I fought back vomit. The sound of his voice alone was enough to make me sick. Overwhelmed with hatred and fear, my breath escaped me. I didn't have much time.

Rushing to the other side of the room, I clumsily opened the paint-chipped, old, wooden window frame in the bedroom of that old plantation house. Struggling to force it open, the wood creaked and buckled.

The voice again.

"Babe?"

I felt my heartbeat in my throat and eardrums. That's when I heard it, the heavy footsteps fumbling up the stairs. I started choking on my breaths. This was it - now or never. I pulled myself up and out of the window, falling and rolling the dirt below, scraping my knees on the dusty gravel. Disoriented by the brightness of the world outside, I began blindly running. I heard the voice scream from the window.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?! You know that you can run, but I will always find you!"

I stumbled to the junk pile of broken down vehicles out back.

"You stupid fucking cunt! Don't make me do it, you know I will! You belong to ME, Goddammit!"

Glass shattered behind me, and I recognized the sound of the shotgun being pumped.

"Stop running or I'll shoot, you fucking bitch!"

The keys were still in the ignition to that rusted old pickup truck. I begged in a whisper, "Please, God, if you're out there, let this truck start." It rolled over with ease. There was a blur of dust as I spun the truck around and headed down the driveway, dodging the monster with the gun. There must've been a dozen gunshots drunkenly fired, but between the dust and booze, none of them stuck.

And just like that, I was gone.

I watched the gravel flying behind me in the rear view mirror, and lit up a cigarette. I felt the sting of the smoke filling my lungs. My cracked and bloodied lips desperately sucked in the nicotine; each pull of smoke burning my throat was a bittersweet reminder that I was alive, that I could feel something. Anything. I reached down into the glove box for the favorite pair of aviators of mine that he always hated. In that moment - gravel flying, wind blowing through my auburn hair and out of the rolled-down windows, I somehow knew that was the last time I'd ever look in the rear view mirror at that dilapidated plantation again.

Then it finally happened. The tears came.

Freedom.

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As I mentioned, my entire life has been spent inside a kaleidoscope.

Figuratively, of course.

Constant scenery changes, flashes of colors, blurs of light. A beautiful, never-ending chaos. 

One day, I freed myself from the prison I had been told that I earned, deserved.

I have blocked out most of those years. But one memory sticks out in my mind vividly, and I will never shake it.

It was one of the many nights that I would lie there, pinned beneath the weight of the disgusting man in the old plantation house. I remember his sweat dripping onto my back and neck as I was immobilized over the arm of the couch, mindlessly fucked like a dog until I bled. While he panted like an animal above me I closed my eyes, through the tears, and prayed that I could be anywhere else in the world but there.

And you know what? By some miracle, for just a moment, I could be; I was.

As my eyes were closed, through my own pain and screaming, my own tiny hell melted away. For a moment, I was on a beach I recalled from long ago. There was sunlight glimmering over the blue waves and crashing up onto the white sand. There were gulls singing lullabies. I could almost see that handsome boy with kind eyes, if I tried hard enough.

Yes, for a moment, I was there. Instead of his hot breath screaming vulgarities on my neck, it was be the warm sea breeze. My own screams escaping my throat in agony became the gulls melodically calling out to their lovers. I was an angel floating through the air in an alternate reality.
That vision of serenity was my escape. I visited the beach often in my dreams.

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The day I escaped, that rusted old pickup truck drove me all the way to the sandy coast I had dreamed for so long. My oasis, nirvana.

As I shut off the engine, I slowly looked up. Just like I had remembered, pure serenity - I saw the sunlight glimmering over the blue waves, the gulls singing lullabies. Walking toward the truck was the handsome boy with the kind eyes.

Finally, it wasn't a dream.
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My legs are no longer bruised, my body no longer frail. The sun has kissed my skin, and so has that handsome boy with the kind eyes. I breathe in the fresh air, and I see the light. Life has purpose and meaning, and the gulls sing me to sleep every calm night.

The kaleidoscope was shattered. Behind it was a crystal clear and beautiful, never-ending universe that I never knew existed. Like a baby born without sight, I simply couldn't conceptualize any other reality outside of the one I had always known.

However, the veil has since been lifted forevermore. I see life before me, clearer than ever. I have new eyes, a new mind. A new heart. An endless summer in my soul, with sandy beaches, singing gulls, and a handsome boy with kind eyes who holds my hand and kisses my forehead. I am safe, and I am alive.

This is my story.