Numb. She did not want to live her life but she was too afraid to die. She wished for an in between. Surviving, dragging on, breathing, but never living. She knew that to live was a huge difference than what she was doing. She only thought one thing: I know exactly what to do to be numb, to reach that lovely, sought after in between. She saw some small pills in her mother’s room. She hesitated but once her reluctance subsided, she snatched them up and took them to her room.She knew what they were. Opioids. Narcotics. Painkillers. Whatever you want to call them, they were in her shaking hands, begging to be swallowed. She looked at herself in the dusty mirror, in need of some Windex and tried to persuade herself in both directions.

“I need this. I deserve this. I’m a good kid, and a pill won’t change that,” she argued aloud.

However, she had a rebuttal for herself, “Listen to yourself! You sound crazy! These pills are for people in real physical pain. You are going to be just like mom and go nowhere in life. You’re going to be an addicted loser.”

“Oh shut up!”, she spat, swallowing the pill. She knew that it was only a matter of time until euphoria would take over. The high soon crept up and as soon as she noticed and felt a little bit of the effect, she was smacked in the face  and drowned by the fuzziness, warmth, and numbness one little pill provided. She was infatuated, in love, entranced. She was sure that this feeling she achieved was exactly how safety, confidence, love, and stability felt like. She believed that she could replicate such irreplaceable feelings. She knew that it was unhealthy by any means, but she was in survival mode. She was ready and wiling to do anything in order to put on a smile every day. However, those magic little pills took control of her. Physically, she was always tired, she did not leave the house without being high, she was not able to use the bathroom properly, and her eyes always looks hollow and dead. Mentally and emotionally, she literally could not resist. Drugs consumed her mind. She was no longer a person. She was a human manifestation of her drugs. Pills owned her. Her usually energetic and syllabic complex voice had slowed to an almost slurred rumble. She was turning in to the shell of the girl she used to be…