Rose stared balefully out her window. Her tired and worn out eyes tried to find the good out there. But what was this world coming to? Violence was more popular than music or movies now. It had gradually become it's own source of entertainment, and the public was eating it up...
   Letting her breath hiss out slowly, she tried to keep her melancholy at bay. She was losing.
   Humming softly to herself, she tried to raise her mood with the catchy pop tune she'd heard years ago on MTV, when it still played videos instead of tv shows. Turning her head away from the outside world, she pictured herself in the future, arguing with some new artist that her song was staying the way it is. That no changes would be made.

   Grabbing her lyric book, she raised her smiley pen and wrote furiously across the page. Demanding that feelings be taken seriously, and not be reckless with the word 'love'.
   Reading over her scrawls, she grimaced and dropped her pen. Flipping through the pages her eyes skimmed over her written words and snapped.
   No one was here! No one cared what she thought! They had stopped coming around when she couldn't do what they did anymore!
   Taking her hand she impulsively started ripping out the paper from its spine.
   She missed the tap on her door, and gasped in shock when she saw her mom standing there over the thresh hold, her mouth open in a surprised 'o'.
   "Rose? What are you doing?"
   Crying out, Rose threw her ruined book against the wall. "What's the use? Huh? I'm not going to be around long enough for these words to matter to anyone else but me!"

   Stepping forward, her mother helped lifting her off her window seat, and moved her to lie on her bed and stare at her ceiling. 'Carpe Diem!' Screamed down at her and her lips tilted slightly at the positive message she had scrawled there in bright red paint.
   A reminder she needed often enough in the face of dim reality.
   Her mother sat beside her, and took her hand.
   Trying to ignore the guilt on her mother's face, Rose stared determinedly at her message.
   "Your words mean a great deal to me. And it will mean a great deal to Kira too when she gets older. It means a great deal to your grandma too, and Bethany." Her mother explained gently, her thumb rubbing the white, paper-thin skin of her daughters.

   Rose closed her eyes and counted slowly, before turning her head away. She continued to gaze at her wall, even when she slowly heard her mother leave.
   Working up enough energy, she touched the faces of the poster that smiled so brightly and warmly at her. Her fingertip tried tracing the band's symbol but only got halfway through before it feel back onto the bed.