20. No longer posing (after)

5 1 0
                                    

Inside my mind I'm reciting my own  monologue...

What If I told you I killed a man and it has my paternal ? What if I might have carved the shape of the love I hankered after him to give me on his torso with a hammer and a nail ? Every thump engaging in the name of being my father's daughter gushing in torrents swarming my fingers,a red sea i made from my own. God...how much I wanted you to want me father look at me with warmth prove me that I turned to be good, be the apple of your eye the way I heard a woman tell my mother about her husband's son.

No one knows the full truth of what happened in that room the neighbourhood speaks, glances at the way I dress after his death, gossip behind my ear about how cold my stare is "she's not grieving him", sometimes they let their dogs come at me other times they just pull their kids aside whenever I pass by as if I might slash their cheeks or steel them away.
Nice aunt Tina stopped bringing us homemade lemon cake i looked up to every weekend now since she heard the news from the tenant. As I said no one knows the full truth and no one wants to be aware of it as if acknowledging it will not satisfy their predictions.

But I came out of my hiding den you want the truth stop faltering those glassy eyes and look at me LOOK AT ME !

This daily routine makes my rage blunt down to a few degrees, reminded me that it all in fact happened and not some gone wrong fantasy I had while on coke. My little recorded monologues grew on me to the point that it became a habit to listen to my own voice along the bus ride from where I had school to the place I lived in, headphones in I'm feeling what they call inner peace, a soundness of mind I never had while I was in my bare old chalky town I never had a voice of my own or a phone for that matter to record it in, my tone plays again and I learned to hear myself from another perspective under a new shade that didn't need to be lighter by necessity but at least I could see what I heard myself say I did nothing was blank red anymore, a cheap white printer-paper sheat soaked with a rich and intense gore colour eating the uncoated texture like an intended flame.

I see my face under that film; glorious moxie rising big in her irises, a nocturnal runaway, unafraid with nothing but a wood carving blade to keep her safe, to serve her as familiarity.

I liked myself better that way.

February 1, 2023

Field Notes ▪︎ Prose (2)Where stories live. Discover now