Notch and Cages
By Lyla Abi-Saab
The air is warm and still. Your eyes are blank and seemingly empty. There is a clearness in them, as those of a blind woman, a cerulean blue beneath deep brown. They are watching something, somewhere. Somewhere unknown to the outsider, something dark enough to swallow up the most innocent, dancing, brightest of eyes. Your chest barely rises, and falls, shuddering.
In the distance, perhaps miles off, you hear a wailing. It may or may not be a kitten. It may or may not be your father. There is cold blood coursing through your veins, and you are a murderer. An imaginary knife twists in your insides and you let the wound run. An imaginary pool of red engulfs you, and you let the wound run. In the far distance, a faucet is shut and stairs creak to a stillness, the day resumes but you know all the threads to its fabric.
You stand at the kitchen counter. It is night and a spoon stirs and clinks against a mug in the measured, artificial light. A thud shakes the air without warning and suddenly you are shrieking. A limp arm faces upward against beige carpet behind the open closet door, you hear the sound of the stairs again, faster this time, detached screams ripping out of you like bits of a marred soul. You run blindly off, pulse speeding and suddenly warm beneath your paper skin, doubled over, body shaking, bile rising up a worn throat with your heartbeat.
You stagger down against cold tile, hugging bony knees to your trembling chin, tears gushing, rivulets upon pale cheeks, drivel spewing and gathering to drip at the lip like a small, pathetic child, scared shitless.
You will yourself upright, tremoring, an earthquake. A fissure barely managing to split open guides your bare feet back to the kitchen. I am okay, he says. I just got dizzy. Nauseous. A left arm is clenched and released. Your hands, violently unsteady, make him tea, the hiss of boiling water just barely drowning out the seething whisper of “murderer, murderer,” in your brain.
- - -
I am a studying writer currently living in Hampton, Virginia. Aside from writing, I enjoy waving madly at strangers, interesting socks, and places of high altitude.
By Lyla Abi-Saab
The air is warm and still. Your eyes are blank and seemingly empty. There is a clearness in them, as those of a blind woman, a cerulean blue beneath deep brown. They are watching something, somewhere. Somewhere unknown to the outsider, something dark enough to swallow up the most innocent, dancing, brightest of eyes. Your chest barely rises, and falls, shuddering.
In the distance, perhaps miles off, you hear a wailing. It may or may not be a kitten. It may or may not be your father. There is cold blood coursing through your veins, and you are a murderer. An imaginary knife twists in your insides and you let the wound run. An imaginary pool of red engulfs you, and you let the wound run. In the far distance, a faucet is shut and stairs creak to a stillness, the day resumes but you know all the threads to its fabric.
You stand at the kitchen counter. It is night and a spoon stirs and clinks against a mug in the measured, artificial light. A thud shakes the air without warning and suddenly you are shrieking. A limp arm faces upward against beige carpet behind the open closet door, you hear the sound of the stairs again, faster this time, detached screams ripping out of you like bits of a marred soul. You run blindly off, pulse speeding and suddenly warm beneath your paper skin, doubled over, body shaking, bile rising up a worn throat with your heartbeat.
You stagger down against cold tile, hugging bony knees to your trembling chin, tears gushing, rivulets upon pale cheeks, drivel spewing and gathering to drip at the lip like a small, pathetic child, scared shitless.
You will yourself upright, tremoring, an earthquake. A fissure barely managing to split open guides your bare feet back to the kitchen. I am okay, he says. I just got dizzy. Nauseous. A left arm is clenched and released. Your hands, violently unsteady, make him tea, the hiss of boiling water just barely drowning out the seething whisper of “murderer, murderer,” in your brain.
- - -
I am a studying writer currently living in Hampton, Virginia. Aside from writing, I enjoy waving madly at strangers, interesting socks, and places of high altitude.
0 Responses
Post a Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
