| Author | Message | ||
| M
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4102 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Once Upon a Time Mia Her small mouth drowning beneath waves of black the child refuses to close her eyes. It’s not the darkness of water she fears but the darkness of bridges she can’t see between now and the hollow promise of morning when she asks will I be five after night? Almost a year away, I tell her yes as if I could wrap up one year of her life into a single lie. As if I could shield her from the monsters that await--for now-- under her bed. Then the wet cheeks and whimpering sounds she makes, “don’t leave me; turn on the moon (night light), read me another story.” Her small fingers fluttering against the wall, shadowplay turns into crocodile, tiger, rabbit, dog. The bird, she insists, is a horse. But I am blind to her fears. I do not understand them anymore. II. In another country, a child curls up next to her brother though she’s afraid of him. Dishes fly across the room, fresh dents appear in the wall supper crumples to the floor. She watches the way blue arcs from his hair, how his whole body quivers when he’s kicking down the door. Everything in him wants to run, she can see that and clutches onto him even more. Years later, she’ll remember how she found his broken body thrown against a barbed wall, eyes closed shut, mouth open, gulping for air. III. I threaten her with time out. The irony lost upon me, unconvincing to her. “Tell me a story,” I ask her. In her childish lilt, small voice like pulling a needle through skin, “once upon a time” - same beginning different ending as light fills the whole room. |
