The tears of the sky inundate me, the light bleeds through the clouds, and suddenly I’m abound with the vastness of Something I’ve never understood. I’m a young girl of thirteen. Anger and sadness have colonized my heart. I see fragments of my face in the fogged-up mirror. My brows remained low and knit together since my concept of family unraveled. Every memory I have of them eluded me, and a frown permanently stained my face. My eyes couldn't bear to look at whatever it was that stared back at me. Shattered glances replaced the long stares I shared when I liked myself, when I found a curiosity in things other than surviving. The bathtub is now filled to the brim, ready to paint my skin with the feverish hue I long to shed. These baths have become my temporary escape. But it's in this very place that self-loathing takes root, where the sound of the water dripping competes with my heartbeat — oh how I hate that sound. I turn the light off. From the slightly open window a single ray of light penetrates the darkness of the bathroom, and in it a myriad of dust particles dance. I sit there, waiting. I don’t know what for, but I wait, expecting something my body and mind will do to turn against me. And it does eventually. I pay close attention to my breathing. The water's sudden warmth, the weight of my own body is too much. I’m forced to hunch over the side of the tub, burdened by my thoughts. My vision blurs. The world seems to hold its breath, suspended, resisting the erosion of time, just as I have. My eyelashes separate the light. I am looking through broken shards of color. This prism of pain decorates my sight. All I hear is the static that echoes relentlessly in my tortured mind. This is what drowning feels like. I’m trapped in this suffocating silence. I open my eyes. I look at my hands, trying to find answers within the wrinkly crevices the water made—the ones that I'd seen on a hot summer day in the pool, the ones that used to make my siblings and I laugh. But they weren’t there. It was winter. The pool hadn’t been used in years. I drained the bath. I quickly dried off and changed before I could catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I made my way to my room at the end of the hall and turned the knob, recognizing that cold feeling. I mean, that is really what the baths did for me. For a moment, I could just feel warm, human, and that was gone the second I stepped from the tub. I went into my room. Here, the cold never subsides. It hasn’t in years. I spend my childhood waiting to be warm again. Maybe one day I’ll find a family that can deal with the burns, the ashes, and the false turns I took to get here. I am a girl of 18 years. I now sit in gleaming gold, and I have let the rain leak into and out of my soul. My spirit is wildly peeking out through my eyes. What is meant for me will be for me tomorrow or the day after. I trust in God that I’ll no longer be bound by the pain of being a daughter who couldn’t find stability. I will give something different to my life. Even though my parents divorced, the preservation of what was good and true and beautiful in our traditions continue, in the love that remains.