Gathered Throats Running Dry

I have lived different lives. I witnessed how it all started and ended. I have loved many things until it seemed I can no longer do.

Each time the camera flashed, my small hand would move on its own accord to create a peace sign using my fingers. It became a habit. I used to have plenty of pictures as a kid, showing my teeth that were not yet tainted by blood after biting my tongue numerous times to not make a sound. I could be as obedient as you would like. Even if I eat myself piece by piece in hopes to be someone much worthy of your love. I do not want to be abandoned.

But my silent pleas did not work. I opened my mouth only to close it once again. I swallowed everything and thought that they would probably be back soon. How could they ever neglect a child, right? Silly, of course, they can. A series of laughters. They did not cease from making their existence known. The voices inside my head grew louder and louder, suddenly, there was an ocean. I did not learn how to swim.

It was the first time I died with no one to mourn me.

A prayer is a begging to be heard. I gnaw at my fisted knuckles as if a skeptic whose tongue is forbidden to speak of marred ideologies. Here I choke upon the language of the holy—for how long it must linger before it mimics the sound of a grief-sickening elegy. And this worship will ever be hollowed, I press my weight to the verses of each bible I am coerced to recite. Gradually it will tell us of my gentle rot, the peeling of skins, limbs dipping along these fettered corpses. However sin-defying, I walk through threads of an unearthly becoming. My silence will be loud enough to mean this prolonging ruination. By then, the heavens will crumble in my open palms. They will have to be on their knees and beg for my forgiveness. Still my aching bones yearn to be unveiled. On some days, I think I am a giant with hands I do not recognize, and I will squeeze the life out of them akin to how smaller they made me, yet not tiny enough to fit in. Listen to my mothered anger: if there exists such divinity, I will devour it whole.

Second, third, fourth. I hold no expectations. I have already realized that it will not matter to anybody regardless of the countless deaths I experienced.

I stood in the same place. I can no longer understand the depth of my pain. I feel older than anyone around me but this childlike rage and loneliness annoyingly persist. It crawls under my wishbone. Perhaps, I have shunned forever when my bones cried, said this ache outlives the love I swallowed, how the lesser deaths always stretch the young so hard, they pull the spines on my back and forget that I ever had wings. I cannot fly my way out of here. I fear I will not be able to draw my face if you ask me to. I stopped looking in the mirror and although sometimes I unconsciously do, I cannot see anything for me to be proud of. My eyes do not form a crescent shape anymore, forcing a smile to cover the weariness I feel all over my body. I find it difficult to function like other normal people do.

I will tell you I have done nothing for years but hate myself for feeling this way. Something pulls at my body’s end—regardless, stretching, after death even—in small fistfuls. I wonder if I have gone cruel and it is probably the case now. I somehow do not wish to admit it. I have stared at the void far too long it started to consume me. All I perceive is I am meant to turn into a skeleton and get eaten by the soil. What is more to expect of someone who never learned the word forgiveness? None. Even if my eyes are open or not, I do not see much difference; it is still purely darkness. I will cease to exist and wither similar to these flowers’ destiny when already neglected. You see, it is fine if you forget me.

I do not deserve to be remembered anyway.

I have lived different lives. I witnessed how it all started and ended. I have loved many things until it seemed I can no longer do. Rather than making me stronger, my traumas turned me hideous. I reek of a smoker’s breath. I hold the worst of love in cherry pits, no calm love to give. I wear sadness as if a second skin, these gathered throats run dry and I throw myself in a momentary sleep.

A day will come where I will not look back. You will witness how these shackles will shatter. The remnants of the past will not haunt me any longer, their footprints will not walk on the same road I take, and the shadows that visit me even in my dreams will disappear.

There I will not hesitate to pass them by.

Alice

_{I used to stumble upon dreams where I was floating as a child, it went higher and higher—the world seemed tinier in my eyes. There were several nights I would have a similar dream when I started to be older, the only difference was the fall that occurred shortly afterwards. It happened so often I no longer remember how I actually felt. One time, I noticed a small crack that made everything crumble and I sank. I never ceased slipping until then.}

_{Hello! I go by the name Alice, under the username @lienric. A graduating senior high school student. I am from Laguna, Philippines. I enjoy doing a lot of things although, I am far from being considered as consistent. Yet I know that we are just trying to survive, and my pets are here to keep me alive. I write when all there is for me to tolerate becomes unbearable, or on some days I think I am a giant with hands I do not recognize.}

_{Pictures used are all mine.}