And I accept the repercussions.

As I grow older in this body and in years on this (miserable) planet I realise something; I become more and more aware of what I like and what I don’t. The unfortunate reality is that we often have to deal more with what we don’t like than the things we do. At least, such has been the case for me since as far back as I can remember. From having to go to bed early while the adults stood up late to being denied sweets or other such desires of adolescence. I hated it then, and still now when I consider it, but at least now I know it was for my “own good.” I was young and was unaware of how my actions might have consequences. Actions always have consequences, and they aren’t always equal and opposite. Sorry Einstein! The truth of it all is one must learn to discern what action will beget what reaction, consequence, or repercussion. One must be in tune with cause and effect. “If I stay up to 4am, I will either sleep until 2 in the afternoon or I will wake up at 8 am and feel like I’ve been shot in the face.” And that is a-ok! So long as you know what might happen and make the best decision for it. Yea, sure perhaps you could avoid all of that and go to bed at whatever folks consider a ‘reasonable’ hour, but where is the fun in that? If you’re a bi-polar functioning insomniac like moi then you’ll be fine. At almost 30 years on this planet I think I’m aware of how my body functions. I might choose to stay up effortlessly for 2 days straight and crash when I can actually relax. Of course that isn’t healthy but niether is a cheeseburger, cigarettes, or a nasty cocaine habit that rots your nasal cave ties causing you to be congested all the time and turn you into a monster of a snorer, but I digress. The fact of the matter is I don’t like being told what to do! This is especially the case when one assumes that I am either a child or in some sort of rehabilitation program. I am not to be subordinated regardless of where I am or who you are especially when you have no grounds to do so! It’s my pet peeve! I am not to be controlled, I’d rather die. I would welcome any consequence that refusal of authority brings. I’ll sleep when I want and still do whatever it is I have to, and I’ve proven it! So I slipped once and missed out on an opportunity. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. There will be more. Point is, if I listened to what people told me I could and could not do I wouldn’t be Jasmine.

Nobody is perfect and I don’t claim to be. Nobody knows all the answers and I define toy don’t. But I don’t position myself as an authority on anyone else’s life and I nobody has the right to do so. And if its coming from a “good” place … Don’t act like a douche. Like anyone in the world with an addiction or a personal problem of some sort, they only can help themselves. I know how I function and I know what I’m capable of. Don’t give me shit for staying up late. Especially when on most occasions you’re not making it any easier for me to sleep snorlax!

A little girl, nine or ten years old is running up, down, and around the home of her grandparents calling for her mother. Theirs is one of four apartments on the floor. Outside there are what might be typical city noises, but they aren’t. It’s night and there is the feint glow of streetlights and convenience store awnings, neon corona palm trees. The little girl exits into the hallway, the 6^th floor, searching still for her mother. No one bothers to stop her. “Where is she” the child cries, “where?” She re-enters the apartment passing first through the living room where moments earlier there was a small gathering. The remaining guests, some familiar to the girl others perfect strangers; wear their fear unwittingly on their faces. They are flushed with worry, pale skinned, red eyed, and huddled around each other. It is as if they have nowhere to go. She remembers that look in their faces. Her mother’s face was home to such a look when they were being evicted. This is why they had come to stay with grandma and grandpa. She remembers how her mothers face went limp with defeat. It seemed as if her beauty had slid off, the soft rounded parts puffed and turned ugly. She hugged her mother then, telling her it was all going to be O.K and wrapped her arms tightly around her slender waist.

Earlier at the gathering there had been a rumbling and the building shook, there were shrieks and people ran. They were having a holiday party. It was after Thanksgiving but before Christmas. It was somehow convenient for all of the guests. There were those who worked service jobs, nightshifts at hospitals, or other such inescapable schedules. They had families to support, mouths to feed, or habits to fund. The little girl had been watching something on television in the room she and her mother shared when the screen went all static and then the annoying emergency broadcast screen appeared. This annoyed the little girl, assuming it was only a test as it so often was. She jumped up and went to find her mother to ask for some eggnog. That’s when she noticed she was missing. The little girl didn’t know that her mother had gone downstairs with a man. She didn’t know that her mother was smoking a cigarette and flirting with an old acquaintance of the family.

The girl made her way past the sulking guests and toward her grandparent’s room where she heard voices from behind their closed door. She knocked, remembering that it was the polite and respectful thing to do. Her grandpa had once scolded her when she entered unannounced. He rushed toward her grabbing her by the shoulders and shook her slightly speaking from behind his tightly clenched teeth, “Don’t you know its rude not to knock, little girl!?” He let her go as she fell back from the threshold and shut the door. She heard drawers slam shut as her grandfather scrambled around the room.

“Come in” she heard her grandmother say from behind the closed door. Her voice seemed distant and weak. It was not a welcoming invite, but an empty one. The little girl pushed the door open, revealing the bare white walls of their room. She entered. Her grandmother sat up in the bed as the grandfather stared eerily out the window. Flashing lights danced across his face. The girl crawled into the bed and lay next to her grandmother. She looked up at her face and saw the same expression as the guests. Tears fell out of the old woman’s eyes and onto a bible that lay open on her lap. “Where is mommy” the girl asked. She too began to cry, wailing in long echoing rounds like a banshee. Her grandfather stared blankly into the street, a dilapidated urban scene. The sidewalk decimated and through the rubble he could see a train car erupted, like lava from a volcano but a solid silver mass. The sky was blood red and dark thick clouds moved rapidly across it. The little girl overheard her grandfather say under his breath “this is the end.”