𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 (𝙵𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝙱𝚡𝙱)

Track 50 | 𝗦𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵

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"We're gonna be okay," he whispers softly into my ear, holding me tight as if he'd never let go, not for a second, not for anyone, not for anything. 

I breathe in the scent of him as if it were the only available oxygen to fill my dry, wrinkled lungs. I sink into the warmth of his chest, pressing my face up against the fabric of his shirt, feeling each individual fiber on my face. My breath faintly escapes through my teeth as the joints and knots in my body begin to loosen with ease.

"Everything is going to be okay," he repeats, stroking my head with the gentlest touch, and for the first time in my entire life...

...I believe it.

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In the center of my palm sits the hearing aid that was purchased over-the-counter by my foster parents last week. It's a small gadget, light as a feather, yet somehow heavy to hold. Heavy in cost, too. Twenty-five thousand, right off the bat. Another win for American healthcare, I guess. Bonnie's wallet has gotta be ran through by now, once again, thanks to me and my decrepitude.

It's been about a week since the ear-bleeding thing. I haven't been to school in a while. It's not like I need to catch up on anything anyway. I won't be needing good grades, what with the future I've chosen for myself: no future.

I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My splotchy silver hair is a frizzled mess, dampened and dark from the shower. The bags under my eyes are glaringly apparent. My crooked lips tilt with perturbation, my shirt is wrinkled and loose. My entire appearance could be defined by that one word, 'loose'. 

I stare feverishly into the eyes owned by the body I had spent the last several years of my life building and maintaining only for the sake and pleasure of people other than myself. I see a product, due for it's expiration date; a toy, worn out and used, ready to be tossed. An impression of the people I've encountered and given myself away to. I did this to myself. I'm both Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster.

I'm only eighteen and somehow I already feel like a withering old man; my muscles quake and my limbs shiver from time to time. How broken do you have to be to look at yourself in the mirror and only see a lifeless amalgamation of joints, limbs, flesh, and fur looking back at you and not just... a person?

As I raise the hearing aid up to my right ear, I feel the floor dragging me down like invisible strings manipulating gravity, pulling me into the Earth's magnetic core. I fit the mould into my ear canal and twist the cable around my ear lobe until it's secure. My right ear is engulfed in high frequencies.

I take a step back. I take in the sight.

For a moment, I saw the world around me lose a little bit of its color. It was like a dark vignette circled my peripheral vision, the overhead fluorescent dimming to an ominous brilliance. 

I looked worse than I did before. It stuck out like a sore thumb. The collar was already enough—one look and it blatantly told people I was a foster kid. And now with this, I'm the foster kid going deaf.

I look so ugly. And pathetic. I wish I could somehow edit myself like an avatar in a video game. But, no. Who I am is what I'm stuck with.

Why did anyone ever want me in the first place?

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