misc:cycle, cont. She punctures my still hand into its flowered opening, twisting and churning as juice flows out. It’s cold, unable to make its way into the crevices of my glued hands. I hear the cracking of glass. My arm falls. Blue with dark, unnatural splotches to remind me this is synthetic– not of mine, but of theirs. There’s a slight sob, then a discretion of trouble in the air. While a hand with black hairs on its fingers wipes away the juice staining the cellophane table covering, I lay on my back. What is life if I was created to be nothing but a mimicry of a soul? What to make of everything if this staining blood is not even my own. In the quiet of midnight, when all trouble had laid to rest, I dreamed of pomegranate seeds that would bleed me out, draining me until I too realized the purpose of my existence was only to perish. concrete shoes are made of glass A wire cage traps me. It holds me by my chest, positioning me so that articulation is a controversial movement. Suffocating. Perhaps living is only hearsay– is it as good as all make it out to be? Watching, saying mom in a mind that can only hear one. I wonder if living is love, or lust. What is love when it is only in the mind, isolated from the heart? What is love in its bare essence, when you gently rip at its petals and watch as loves-me and loves-me-nots are stamped into wet concrete. I watched her body being placed into a body bag, two men in white transparent against the red. Two colors blurred as one, my eyes could not follow them as they slowly opened the wire door, slipping in and out as if the stains of yesterday were nothing more than an inconvenience. They would take her in a big, white van, far, far away from where I was, and remained. They would leave the snow stained ruby red with yellow and black caution tape surrounding a crude outline. They would leave the window cracked, leaving me only to see a split world in which pomegranates were on the left and a blood-stained knife on the right. The van started, then quieted. For as unbearable as the quiet was, I could not run, for the glass shoes were the concrete in which I had stamped in too early, and too often.
Beware
Jiyoung Yoo, 12
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