Heather Schwartz's Blog

This isn't the first time I have written a post like this. I wrote one back in the wake of the Paris terrorist attack. Today I feel obligated to do it again in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando. I have heard so much and seen so much as of late that has to do with hate. So much hate towards the lgbt community, racism, and religion. Hate has to stop! Are so many people so truly unhappy in their lives that they lack the ability to love. If you follow me or know me I beg that you spend just a moment to stop and look into your heart and find love for mankind. We NEED to stop all the hate and bring in unity. I hear so much hate in the name of the Lord and I ask what God do you pray to that encourages hate? My God and the teachings I was taught is that I do not have the right to judge another human only God does! I believe every human has the right to live the life that makes them happy. Despite what your sexual orientation, race, or religion I welcome you to the human race. Nothing will change until we learn to love again. Stop the hate stop the violence and join together in unity. Can you imagine what the world could accomplish if we all worked together? There would be nothing that could stop us!

As I wake up this morning to yet more news reports of the terrorist attacks in Paris yesterday. My heart breaks a little more for everyone in France, and especially for those families that lost loved ones. I knew last night that I wanted to write something and spent all night thinking of nothing else but the terror that exists in this world. What was I going to say? What could I say? And finally now I know. I have seen so much hate in the past few months. More than I can ever recall seeing in my lifetime. Whether it’s about a “Red Cup”, racisms, hate for police, religious views, or even your choice in who you want marry. I think that it is devastating that I am having to raise my children in a world of so much HATE. A place where they are no longer judged for who they are as person but for the color of their skin, their choices of God, and who they choose to be with. I was taught that it isn’t about what’s on the outside but what’s on the inside that counts. If you stopped judging for a moment, just a moment and looked around you wouldn’t see color, religion, or red cups. You would see people! People that struggle everyday just the way you do. In the midst of such tragedy I ask you to put aside your differences. Whether you realize it or not war is in our midst and we will all be fighting side by side. At the end of the day every person is the same. If you cut us, do we not all bleed the same color? So stand tall world, stand united. We are not one nation but one world. We are a sea of differences and an array of colors but together we make up a beautiful rainbow.

My book Darkness Falls is now available for purchase from my publishers website https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookst...
I will be doing marketing and singing so keep a look out!!!! The official release date is January 5th and you will be able to purchase it online at your favorite store! I am so excited!!!

The feelings are overwhelming. I fight for breath. I know I could ease the pain one simple slit and it would all go away. I promised I wouldn’t. I can’t I have to be better than I was. I have to show that I can win but again I struggle to get control. One little slit and it would all be fixed. One little slit and I could be the real me again. No one would have to know the little voice in my head says. No one would know, one little slit that’s all it would take to ease the pain. I’m not stupid I know what it is a misdirection to feel a physical pain. Physical pain I can deal with its the emotional I have issues with. One little slit and it would all go away.

Some days I hate myself more than others. Some days I feel like maybe I could really make this work. Be the person they all need me to be then in the blink of an eye I say or do something to ruin it all. I get showed just how selfish I truly am and I didn’t even know it. What do I do? I’ve tried so hard to change and nothing seems to work. Why they want me in their lives period is beyond me. I feel like everyone would be so much better off without me.

Preface

It was dark and late I was so happy he offered to walk me home. We were almost there and I wasn’t looking forward to saying good-bye, I wanted more time with him, trying to slow down enough that it would take longer but not enough that he would notice. This is silly, I thought shaking my head I’m a grown woman I should just be able to tell him I like him. I took a deep breath and held it reach out and grabbing his arm to stop him and turn him toward me. Even in the dark I could see his eyes. Sucking in a breath I took a step away, I should run or scream but I couldn’t all I could do was stare into those black depthless pits. It all happened in one motion one second he was standing in front of me the next he had me in his arms running. I didn’t understand I never actually saw him move, how is that possible?

“Jason will be happy to see you, Angel.” He said in a voice so gruff I barely heard him, but who is Jason?

“Rachel, can you hear me?” I could hear her but I couldn’t respond all I could do was watch as he ran with her. I could see the fear etched on her face, feel her panic, and I already knew her fate. I wanted to run after them, scream out to her, I wanted to save her, but I knew I couldn’t. Slowly I opened my eyes. “Rachel, hey, where did you go? Oh my God you’re bleeding.”

“Huh?” I could hear her but my brain still wasn’t understanding until I licked my lips and tasted the coppery hint of blood. With a shaky hand I reached up wiping the blood from my nose.

“Rachel are you okay? Do you want me to get someone?” my best friend Brooke asked.

“Um… yea… no… I’m fine just a headache. You know it’s getting pretty late I should probably be heading home.” I wasn’t in the mood to explain what was going on… I didn’t know how to anyways and I was tired of making up lies.

“Oh yea I guess it is getting late. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yea girl, are you kidding me? I’m fine like I said just a little tired.”

“Do you want to just stay here tonight?”

“Nah I’m good I’ll see you later.”

With hugs good-bye I left the warmth and comfort of my friend’s home for the cold dark wet streets. As I’m walking home I think about what I just saw, about my life trying to figure out where to go from here. I didn’t know the girl in my vision. I had never seen her before in my life yet she looked so familiar, like from a dream that I can’t quite remember. I’ve tried to keep track of the people I’ve seen in my visions over the years. Not by names I very rarely know their names, but by description. I’m not sure why I do this; I just felt that I had to. I feel a responsibility to them; like it is my fault they’re gone. I don’t know maybe one day they would all come back but I didn’t have a lot of hope for that seeing as how I have seen at least half of them tortured to death. Always they are asked the same questions. Where can we find her? Can you get us close to her? Why are you protecting her? I have no idea who this her is but I wished they would just tell them what they wanted to know. No one life is worth all of this death and destruction.

Life is dark now or so they say I don’t think much of it, it’s what I’ve always known. They say people are disappearing and dying more often than they used to. I try not to think about it; it just seems depressing and sad so I try to ignore it. I don’t need more depressing and sad my visions give me enough for ten lifetimes. No one seems to know what is going on, or at least they aren’t telling me. The adults don’t talk about it much and when they do they appear quick to change the subject when someone walks into the room. Sometimes, when I walk into a room, I get the distinct impression that they were just talking about me or something that they prefer to keep hidden from me. I have my suspensions that there is something that the people I love are trying to hide from me. However I’m not sure how to go about finding out what it is or if I really want to know for that matter. There are more times than I can count that things simply don’t add up.

I knew from a young age that I wasn’t the same as my friends but it was strange small things that made me different or at least they used to be small things. Things that I knew if I told anyone I would suddenly find myself in a nice padded room, so I decided to keep them to myself, or at least I tried to. I can still remember the first time I told my dad of some of the weird things I could do. I was only four at the time and it hadn’t occurred to me not to tell anyone. I can’t really describe the look on my dad’s face when I told him; it was something between shock, fear, and admiration. I could understand the shock and fear I had felt those things myself but the respect was the one I still don’t understand. I mean what kind of parent would find admiration in their four year old telling them that they see people’s deaths before they happen. It was after that day that I swore I would never tell another soul if something like that ever happened again, and so far I haven’t. I wanted to tell my best friend once; it was about three years ago when she let me in on her family secret. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Brooke and I had been hanging out in my room listening to music and talking about boys.

“Hey Rach could I tell you something totally weird and crazy and you believe me?”

“Brooke you’re my best friend why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because girl this stuff is crazy. I’m talking the cow jumped over the moon crazy.”

“Okay now I have to know… Tell me… Tell me… Tell me.” I said sitting up on my knees and leaning towards her knocking the magazine I had been looking at to the floor.

“Um… Okay so you know the Salem witch trials?”

“Of course Brooke who doesn’t?”

“Right okay so it turns out my great great great great great grand mother, or something like that was one of the first witches burned.”

“Wow dude that sucks. I’m sorry, but what’s weird about that? I’m sure there’s lots of people who can say the same things. I think it all sucks and was stupid personally, did you know most of the people they burned weren’t even witches?”

“Rachel focus.”

“What? I’m just saying.” I shrugged.

“Okay let’s do this differently… Rachel I’m a witch…”

I couldn’t help but laugh I mean come on there’s no such things as witches. “You mean like hocus pocus and abracadabra witch?”

“No Rachel I mean like be nice or I’ll turn you into a toad witch.”

“Okay… Okay… I’m sorry. So can you do anything?”

“Um… watch this.” She said jumping up and grabbing a candle. She set down and closed her eyes not five seconds later the candle was lite.

“Whoa… Brooke that’s so cool.”

I’m still not sure she could have turned me into a toad even if she had wanted to, but I’d rather not find out the hard way either. It was so hard to keep it from her when she trusted me with something so huge, I mean like giant, but I just couldn’t force the words from my mouth. I wouldn’t have known where to start anyway so much had changed since I was four, I was fourteen then and I didn’t just see people’s deaths anymore. I could see lots of things before they happened; I had seen people’s abductions, their torture, and their murders, natural disaster, and some good things to, like a Christmas present, who was going to ask me to the homecoming dance but the good stuff was far and few between. I could move things with my mind, not heavy things but small ones, like a pencil or an apple. I tried to move a car once, just to see what would happened… It didn’t move. But how does someone tell their friend that they can see and do these types of things? I mean being a witch is one thing but being whatever I am, is a whole other.

I’m seventeen now and the visions are getting worse and more frequent and less like visions and more like actually living through it myself rather than just watching it happen. I have this nagging feeling that I need to tell someone, a feeling that something bad is about to happen, like I should be helping these people but I have no clue how. I can’t go to the police they wouldn’t believe me and even on the slim chance that they did I wouldn’t be of much help to them. I have never met these people before, didn’t really know who they were, where they were from, or where they were being held. I could tell my parents but my mom would just freak out like she usually does when I tell her something she doesn’t want to hear and my dad, he would probably just tell me to embrace the visions like he did when I was little. The problem with that is, as the visions get more intense so does the pain. It started out with just minor headaches however now it has progressed to nose bleeds and the visions seem to be getting stronger everyday. I sometimes fear that it is something worse than visions like perhaps I’m actually crazy, or I have a tumor growing in my brain, maybe I was dropped in toxic waste as a baby. However if it were any of those things I would hope my parents would at least pretend to care a little more. I never get any warnings before one happens and it is getting more and more difficult to hide. More times than not I feel like I am on the brink of death, some of the things I see in my visions I know can’t be true. Monsters don’t exist they are scary stories told to children to make them behave. However in my visions they are real: vampires, werewolves, and shape shifters are the common ones I have come to know to be real. I wish they were really hot guys or even if they sparkled in the sun like in the movies it would make it easier but I wasn’t so lucky. These things were scary, tall dark and sinister. The vampire was skinny with sunken eyes and ash white almost see through skin, with dark hair and eyes that look like the swirling pits of hell. The kind of eyes you feel like your soul would get consumed by if you were to stair into them for very long. I don’t know how to tell people that I see the things from their nightmares working together to take over the world. The things these monsters say and do are frightening. I have this overwhelming feeling of doom and I don’t know how to stop it, so I try to ignore it. Most of the time I’m successful, I have more difficulties suppressing the feeling at night than any other time. However I pushed the thoughts from my mind and go on with my life the best I can like every other teenage girl.

To love is to be loved

To hate is to feel pain

To cry is a relief

To feel isn’t usually a joy

The small things in life are always forgotten

Until thought of in a negative light

Pain is like a weed

Once it’s been planted it grows

There seems to be nothing that can be done

Pain fuels you

With it anger grows

With anger love dies

Shrivels and withers like a rose

 

Pain and tears an endless river

No land in sight

You float through life

No need to paddle

You’ve always had a raft

The wind blows and with it comes change

You weren’t watching when everything floated away

You have to work

Struggle to breath

You have to fight in order to succeed

I say don’t, so you do

I say stop, so you won’t

You fight me, I fight you

You say I’m sorry, I say I hate you

Words can hurt you

Words can make you

Pain lives with you

But I don’t want to