Little Rays of Inspiration | Teen Ink

Little Rays of Inspiration

February 8, 2009
By CatherineM SILVER, Bronx, New York
CatherineM SILVER, Bronx, New York
8 articles 1 photo 0 comments

Dear God,
Today I woke up alone in my room and let the hot rays of sun dance on my face. The light shown through the hideous mauve curtains hanging on my window that my mother bought me last year. The silence haunted me, the darkness startled me and the mice running ramped in the pipes of the walls annoyed me. However that all went away when I lifted my head and started back at the reflection watching me in the large mirror just opposite of my bed. This girl with black scruffy hair, a swollen face, and large hazel eyes watched as the Led Zeppelin poster slowly began to peel away with the force of the breeze sneaking into my window. The sun obviously deceived me, and distracted me with its beauty and warmth. The girl was then covered with the poster after it swiftly flew down upon her and covered her agony, as music tends to nurture us all. In Led Zeppelin's place she found Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious and Nancy all sitting around a table indulging in fine wines and cigarettes. She didn't recall ever putting the poster up, or covering it for that matter. She never remembered finding joy in the crude words and heavy beats of the Sex Pistols. At this point in her life she knew very little and remembered even less. But what she did know was that at that moment in time, neither of the two were actually there. All notions of their fame, fortunes and messages had been epitomized just as she had once seen them and continued to see, as she had done so that morning. They were nothing but images on her wall. Images of an illusion, an illusion that had been tampered with to meet the criteria of being worthy of status and an eternal resting place on her wall. A sneeze and blink of an eye sent the poster sliding off her back and onto the floor. The frustration of the car alarm raging just outside her window only mirrored the internal conflictions boggling inside of her head. What does she do with the poster now? Out with the old and in with the new? Is that how it's always going to be, forget the past and focus on the future? When will I ever find the balance that is my present? The cold breeze started to tickle my toes, the girl in the mirror seemed to find herself in the same situation, allowing them to seek refuge even further under her covers. My mirror only reflects what it sees, an image. It does not pass judgment or hear explanations, it simply shows the truth. A picture is worth a thousand words, but my life is worth a billion. Only then had I been aware of the clock ticking on the wall next to my bedroom door, the exit. I've heard that time is an illusion, but we allow it to dictate our lives with the greatest of ease. What if I laid here forever, would forever be an illusion too? I can't even come to terms with what forever means to me; love, faith, happiness, peace... An alarm went off in the apartment some where. I glanced at the clock, it was 10:13am. The girl in the mirror glanced too, but I couldn't see what she was looking at, her face was empty, but full of questions, none of which I would ever be able to answer. I was useless. But I could do one thing. Maybe I could at least provide her with a new image, a new life, a new illusion. I turned around and stood on the mattress, I once thought I could lay on forever, and faced the poster. Underneath all the drugs and liquor, underneath all the illusion of happiness and makeup, underneath their entire life captured in that scene of a moment, the actually looked quite miserable. Their sunken faces and dull eyes offered nothing but emptiness to my reflected friends room, to my room. If I took it down only I would ever know it had ever existed, but to her it would just be another scene, image and illusion for her to take in and do with as she chose to. She would never have to know it had once hung directly over my head as I slept. She would be given a clean slate. I carefully peeled away the tape at the corners of the image that hung on my wall, I turned around and saw her peeling away at something too, but she wouldn't show me what it was, and let her Cheshire grin do most of the talking. Maybe she wanted to be more like me, living in an illusion instead of being confined to that of an image, but secretly it was I who wanted to be more like her. Simplistic and eternal, new every time I saw her. I crumbled up the poster and turned around, she was still there, her room looked so much emptier now, but I somehow knew she would be able to fill it up again. I hopped of my bed and picked up the other poster, crumbling it as well. The carpet warmed my feet. I was out of view of my mirror and stared at the space surrounding my bed. Some day I'll hang something there that will mean more to me, but for now that space is mine to create and play with. The rays of sun no longer shone through my window, the beauty was gone. Curiosity got the best of me. I stepped in font of the mirror just once more. She was there again in her new life. Her content was startling, her smile endearing, and room pleasing. She obviously never knew what hung over her bed before that. I believed she was being true with me, or was it all a lie? I don't think I'll ever be able to find that balance between illusion and reality, all I'll ever know is life and all she will ever know is nothing. Maybe I shouldn't envy her ,after all something is better then nothing.

The author's comments:
This is based on a true event that happened about 20 minutes before I wrote this piece of prose. It was a Sunday morning, my family usually goes to church but I am at the moment conflicted about church and religion. I believe life is my religion and am inspired but each days little miracles.

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