The world holds us back. From whom we were to who we are now because of it. It wants you to listen and do what it says. Or at least Joanna's does, she listens, but nothing ever gets better for her. She drifts further and further from the world her mortal being disappearing every minute of every day. This is Joanna's story.
She looks at the cold piece of steel in her hand; it gleams in the dim light. It’s slick and sharp, and cold to the touch. She touches it to her skin; she feels her pulse beneath it, the beat that means she’s alive. She Presses it hard and drags it along, it ripples her flesh open. Her feelings let out through the gashing wound. She lifts her head to admire her work; the cut is long and runs along her wrist. The piercing pain hits and she screams in agony. What was this supposed to do for her she wonders? Her face tear streaked, she grabs onto the counter top and pulls herself up. She turns the faucet on and runs her wrist beneath it; she dries it of and puts a bandage. This will make you feel better they said; it will cure all your agony they assured. THEY WERE WRONG!

Curing the pain.
There is silence all around her no one is home no one is ever home. The quiet makes her uncomfortable; it’s another thing that bothers her. She looks at her self in the mirror she sees a face that has been destroyed over time. Her hair is falling out, she looks like a ghost, and she’s a skeleton of her old self. She sits on the cold linoleum floor and trembles, sobs escape her as she thinks of how things used too be. Before everything turned sour, before the drugs and bad behavior. All those feelings and memories flood back into her mind. She reaches for the bathroom cabinet and pulls out a Ziploc bag. She opens the bathroom door and rushes out to her bedroom to grab a cd and back she goes. She places a small amount of the thin white powder on the cd and starts to separate it. She takes a deep breath and sniffs it in. She puts it away and walks out of the bathroom and too her bedroom, closing the door and then lying on her bed. She falls into a dreamless sleep, she’s finally at peace nothing troubles her now. But it will soon wear off and she will be miserable once again. As she comes too she starts to remember how everything happened how she began to slip.

The Remembrance.
Her mother brushed her hair in the morning for long periods of time. They talked and reminisced, thoughts of the old days and of the new days. Sunlight pouring out the window letting in hope, and happiness. Days spent talking, laughing, it all passed quickly. On her 14th birthday her mother was diagnosed with cancer. They shaved her hair and she was half gone but the drugs they gave her started to have a great effect on her. Two years and they had healed her not completely but now she was out of dangers reach. The doctors told her she was safe to stop taking them, but two years on a drug can get you hooked and just like that her mother couldn’t stop. She became distant always sleepy, or gloomy, the drugs had numbed her she felt nothing. Several nights she would steal away in the cover of night. Joanna watched all this from a distant watching her mother disappear right beneath her eyes. She would watch her mother sneak out of the house as soon as she thought that everyone was asleep. Staying up and gazing at the stars waiting for her mothers return, watching her mother agonizingly trying to climb the porch steps to get back in. One night as Joanna saw her mother yet again flee she knocked on the window sill her mother looked up and then bolted. Her heart shattered she lay on the floor and cried herself to sleep. The sun awoke her struggling to get up she looked out the window. Her mother had to be home by now; she always came back when the sky was still dark. Her father knocked at the door her sister by his side, she was bawling. Questions flooded her mind but deep inside she already knew, she had been waiting in terror for this day. She ran out of the room and into her bathroom that’s how it became her safe haven, it was the place that gave her comfort in the painful hours of that day, and many more.
The images start to slip and she's awake. There is a soft tap on the windows, while the rain falls outside. The drugs make it hard to stand, she staggers then falls right back down on the bed. The room comes into full view, but then her vision becomes obscured, as tears start to streak down her face. "Miss you mom!" She cries out. It's time to move on rising once more, she heads to her bathroom. Applying blush, and combing her hair out, she tries to make herself look presentable for her father. Putting on a white cashmere sweater, and her jean skirt. She heads done stairs to start preparing dinner. Pulling at the sleeves of her sweater to make sure they cover her cuts. She sits down to watch TV. While awaiting their return. It's all an act, the dinner making, sitting in front of the TV. pretending to be interested. She does it all to make sure they don't send her back, back to the rehabilitation center. The front door clicks, and she stays still trying to look involved in what is going on, on the screen in front of her. "Hey bunny how was your day!" Her father exclaims as he walks over and gives her a kiss on her forehead. "Better I guess I made Italian food." She replies lying straight to his face. She doesn’t feel better, but she knows that this small sentence, gives him reassurance.