Sleeping Beauty could die at any moment. The tragedy was that she hadn’t. She was consciously drinking herself to death. One day, she would pass out with a lit cigarette, and burn to death. The tragedy was that she hadn’t. What she had wasn’t a physical addiction to alcohol. It was a mental one. Every night, she’d drink herself to sleep. She craved it, needed it— depended on it to appease her guilt; her self-loathing. She needed it to sleep well. She had more guilt than she knew what to do with. And those dreams, those nightmares. Those nightmares the drugs were supposed to restrain. Even after all those years, they still haunted her. She thought they made her forget everything, but in reality, they only made the images worsen. They made the images more vivid. She was just too drunk to care. Too weak. Too drunk to even pay attention to anything. Everything felt so much better. Even as she cried, she felt better. She couldn’t cry unless she was completely, and utterly wasted.

Sleeping Beauty, lying on the couch. Sleeping Beauty, crying. Sleeping beauty wasting herself away in her misery. She was careless. She’d pass out every night, lit, half-burnt up cigarette in one hand, bottle of liquor in the other. A bottle of Xanax she had no need for spilled on the rug. Her body, a pathetic mess. Carelessly abused and uncared for, wrapped in nothing more than a wet towel. She was supposed to have died years ago. The tragedy was that she hadn’t. Neglected cuts and bruises from past fights or jobs, half of them she had no clue where she’d even gotten them from.

Things always looked better when she was asleep, when she was cut off from everyone and everything. When she’d taken a handful of antidepressants with her nightly glass of whiskey, finished half a pack of cigarettes, and passed out peacefully weeping on the black leather couch. It was heaven. Babies couldn’t sleep that well. The phone line disconnected, the door not even locked. The dog would take care of any unexpected stranger.

Sleeping Beauty could die at any moment. She knew it. The tragedy was that she hadn’t. She was consciously drinking herself to death. One day, she would pass out with a lit cigarette, and burn to death. The tragedy was that she hadn’t.

Sleeping Beauty knew the Prince was never going to come…and maybe Sleeping Beauty was already dead.