It is funny when you can pinpoint the moment of your demise, of your family's and the world as you know it. When you can say there, there's where we lost it and all spiralled downwards in a never ending abyss, flailing our arms. It's funny, sad, but funny. Our downfall was marked by the death of my sister, Heliena, the dreamer and dizzy-headed, light-footed one of us all who was all about fun and being fancy free and gleeful and cheeky. Or, rather, her suicide.

The blood around her naked body swilled a deep red, her skin pallid and her eyes closed and her head lulled to the right. Her long, brown hair, floated in the water, soaked slightly, dancing in the ripples of the dripping tap. Even in death, my sister was beautiful.

Around our neighbourhood we used to be known as the Duboir Girls. Well, not anymore..

My sister, Angel, took it like a right jab to the boxing match that was her life, throwing herself right in their and fighting back with a powerful king hit... to herself. She was her own punching bag, and her cheekiness faded and turned into maliciousness, malevolance. She toyed with her friend's heads cruelly, turning more than one out our front door, sobbing.

My youngest sister, Pixie, took her death quietly, wide eyed and returning to her room for days on end. We'd find her, sometimes, lying on the bathroom tiles, spread eagled, eyes staring up at the white cieling. Her hair would be splayed out around her and I'd help her up, help her fragile body stand up, knowing, just softly, that she hadn't eaten in six days.

My mother took it like she always dealt with grief - two sleeping pills washed down with gin and a locked door. She slept herself through three days before finally getting up, getting up to attend the funeral of her eldest daughter, all which had been arranged by our church.

And me? All I can remember from the day I found my sister if the gasping steps, stumbling down the stairs in a fumble of tears and pain, catapulting myself out, out the door, into the grey light between sundown and night. Running to the park and flinging myself onto Heliena's swing, crying, sobbing, screaming, yowling until the young mother who had been lingering with her child, sure I was high on meth and simply freaking out, ushered her little boy away.

I remember passing out and finding myself in arms, strong arms, who carried me back to my house as I refused to open my eyes, humming Heliena's favourite song, "Smile Like You Mean It" by the Killers, over and over again.

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Well, tell me what you think. If you don't like it, I'll delete it, but PLEASE ATLEAST TELL ME!

Love,
I Shed Myself