This will not be a sad story.

I refuse to let it go on as though everything is a smouldering prophecy. I can finally take control and bury it deep below the surface.

The ink inscribed into this sheet will be without the unsettling stains of salty tears. The words you see will not be burdened with the teenaged air of sullen rebellion.

(For I am like a clenched fist, I have always resisted the truth).

This story will unfurl itself, the masquerade of a secret spun by a young mind. Cold fingers pause and hover over the s key. This may not be a story, a quiet thought mutters. Perhaps it is just an attempt to retain myself in the blaze of twisted glory we call life. My head inclines ever so slightly to the right, as though contemplating this text at a different angle will force it into a sensible mould.

But I know better. Words are designed to frame the insensible and inexplicable, not to recreate the known. At least, that is what I feel when I write, a rapidly mounting sense of awed accomplishment. That feeling that is stemmed from the determination to reach, to claw out of miserable circumstances and tell a story that has yet to be told. Yes, this is undoubtedly a story.

(For I am like a rose set on fire, I have always been beautiful in suffering).

My fingers resume a constant tapping of keys playing a toneless music. The sound pulses in my ears like it is a living thing, quick, young paws padding over broken glass. It cuts a little into my mind but eggs to me go on.

This will be the cracked mirror of my life, a fragmented tale. It will be a recollection of everything that has made me what I am. For tonight, I will write without abandon and smile in the artificial glow of a computer screen, ablaze with the only sincere glory I know of.

The slamming of a door shatters this dream ever so slightly, albeit unintentionally.

(For I am like a knowing prey, I know that all good things must come to an end).

The pattering of abused keys crescendos anxiously, parallel to the exasperated sighs churning the air. I will write for as long as I can hold on to the feeling of needing to scream at the world, despite the heat pricking my ears and my spine at the sighs. This is my story, it will not be sad and I have to tell it.

Her voice is suddenly very jarring. It halts my fervent fingertips in their tracks. Even now I can hear the shade of dismal frustration in her voice, frayed with the perverse hours of work, sobs and flashbacks in that order. It occurs to me that I should entertain her maternal ideals, for her sake more than mine. With a sigh, the laptop wears its mask once more.

(For I am a dying martyr, I believe that people deserve better than I).

I flit down the stairs, hands tracing banisters and railing without a solid touch. But with every ghostly step, words are circling my mind and tinting my vision a shade of grey. Every action translates into a slick sentence and carefully crafted words. They add to the story my fingers are itching to write, to ease the blaze inside of me.

My destination is mere seconds away but something compels me to stop. I stagger and stand, fazed. A near tangible wave of raw emotion, the kind that prompts people to do unimaginably noble things but, in my case, just begs for a single moment of selfishness.

The dining table is strewn with unspoken words and battered memories of battered skin. She looks up, hair falling in aged wisps along her scarred cheeks. The eye contact honestly frightens me. I do not want to remember the soul that barely occupies those eyes. That is not my mother although she may be. But this is my story and I can spare the memories that she embodies and carries.

I will not burden myself or these words like she is doing.

(For I am the ripped Sunday dress of the little girl grown up, I have lost so much of the childlike beauty to the glorious blaze of a writer’s word).

The venture back up is a sinful safe haven. For once, her voice unshackles me. The keyboard is waiting dutifully for my touch, to aid my writing of my story. I am not a key, I will not be abused like she is and she was.

This is not a sad story.

For it is a mere child’s say.

But it is a story of brutal truth.

And innocence burned away.

Labels: Competition, Prose