The Promised Land

It began with superficial words, quiet intentions, and a heart lost in the defiant dance with loneliness.

It began slowly and casually, never alluding to the hell it later dared to raise upon us.

It began with a blistering summer spent indoors, the warm battery of the laptop burning into my skin.

It began with the slow carving of bright life from the outside in, tearing off the richness to feed to the one pulling these strings.

It began with complete ignorance, but somehow total awareness; things that should have made me petrified were met with a calm resolve and a naïve determination.

It began with a self-hatred so fierce, that I would have gladly walked into the blistering fire of the sun if that was the expectation.

After all, it is easy to sell the idea of the promised land.

It is harder to be fourteen and understand you are buying it.