• I hide under blankets to make the pain go away. The whole world screams in my ears and rips my stomach. I cough up blood but tell no one. I hide the bloody tissues under my bed, and listen to the sky fall outside my room.

    I wait for the soft voice that should have come looking for me by now, but that's gone away forever. The walls close tightly around me and I try to see the sky through crystallized eyes, and that hail that's falling now.

    If wishes came true, I would wish for my angel to pull me from beneath my cartoon blankets, and whisper about how empty the world would be without me...but the world is empty now.

    Hospital beds are sticky, cool and hard. They eat me in my dreams. The sheets suffocate me with bleach. I think they should have let you sleep outside in the summer nights when you stayed there.

    It would have been better than the cool haunting unfriendly blue rooms that were yours. I remember you were on the ninth floor, closest to Heaven, with the stars you can't see because there was a light right outside the window. Yet you watched them anyway.

    Curtains that smelled thick hid the moon.

    I pull myself out of bed and go to your room. You won't be back, so I hide under your covers rather than look for you. They smell like you; I hold my breath and wait for you to chase me out.

    Hide and Seek

    Where are you, angel brother?


    I breathe and count to one hundred and five. Then I hear the buzz of frowning people in black and white. They came to say goodbye. I can still feel you. Are you really gone?

    There's someone in your room. I look and she apologizes for barging in, then asks if this was your room. She has green eyes. She doesn't wear makeup. Those eyes almost stop hearts, like yours did. That's why she came isn't it? She's looking for those eyes.

    I tell her it's your room and she asks who I am. When I tell her, she cries and hugs me tightly. Her skin is cold yet her embrace oddly warm.

    I cough and she looks away. It's horrible to see someone cough. They always look so small, but old, and cold. She wants to comfort me, but can't because she doesn't want to cough too; I know that feeling.

    She pushes my hair from my eyes, noticing them for the first time. She asks if I'm really your sister, and I tell her about your adoption...about your mom. She can't understand why people ruin their own lives, and the lives of others. Neither can I.


    The world is dark again. The pain in my chest, stomach, and head rages like the sky outside cracks.
    Are you bowling, my angel?



    More blood is expelled as days pass, and my coughing increases. I'm still hiding under my blankets and wish my ribs didn't feel broken. They probably are.

    My hair is a mess and I look like trash, but it doesn't matter. I close my eyes and count to ten. Ready or not here I come. I leave the safety of your bed, and start to search.

    I'm on a bridge. The air smells like Winter. There's nothing here, so I'll keep searching.

    I wake up cold and sick in an alley. I've lost track of how long I've been gone. The moon is hidden and the world is truly empty. Where are you, angel? I cough. It's moist and coppery. My throat is raw, but I call out. No one hears me.

    You're not here either, are you?


    I expect to find you in the nearest city, but all I find is blackness, hate, and half-frozen rain that burns my skin. I wish I were under my blankets again and sit under a streetlight. A man throws some money at me and disappears with his plastic dates. I use the money to continue searching.

    I tell the cab driver to take me as far as he can with what I payed him. My hair is snarled and my skin hurts. I cough again and the cabbie takes me to the place I hate. I can barely move. I try to fight, but he carries me into the building and leaves me in a chair. He tells a nurse that I am sick and need medicine.

    He tells her I am his niece, and that I ran away. That my parents are looking for me. That he is going to contact them when he gets home. Neither the nurses nor I see him again.

    They take my clothes and bathe me. They have to shave my head because it won't allow a brush through.

    The beautiful hair, though which you ran your hands
    when I cried on your lap.
    You told me I could change the world.
    You told me love was all I needed.

    The scent of the hell I'm held in wakes me from a dream where I saw you. The world you were in was shiny and white. You glowed like the moon, laughed and hugged me, telling me you missed me so much.

    I try to hide under the stiff sheets, but they smell scary and lonely. They aren't warm, neither are the nurses. When they ask me where my family is, I don't speak. I pretend that I lost my voice coughing.

    They give me a chalkboard. I cover it with pictures of your eyes.

    Angel. I'm hiding.
    It's your turn to find me, okay?
    Count to ten, and don't peek.
    Just find me.


    I hear them whispering about my lungs. There is nothing they can do, Angel. I am too sick. I close my eyes and count to ten.

    Hide and Seek.


    The doctor gives me something to sleep. When I wake up I finally find you. You have tears in your eyes, and you shine like the memory in my dreams. You tell me that the world is empty now, but I don't care. It was already empty without you. You smile and take me to where you now live.

    My stomach and chest and ribs and skin and head don't hurt anymore, and while I slept, all my hair grew back, and I grew wings just like you, my Angel brother.

    I'm so happy I have found you.
    Or did you find me?