The Girl on the Flower Bed

"Lullaby, don't leave today.", her voice seems to beg but there is more fear than desperation.

Because the sun has left her. The moon denies her of its light and even the stars refused to twinkle for her.

The drops of the rain changed their course and the wind blew in a different direction, not even wanting to touch her skin. But they cannot outnumber the droplets of the rain that came from her eyes nor overcome the deep wind of sigh that escaped her lips.

What has not took the chance to depart?

When choosing who to stay, what has taken the short straw with intent?

What has decided to change its course to go back and stay?

"Lullaby, don't leave today.…"

Only the shape of loneliness has strayed from the path that everything else took and embraced her existence.

But was it enough?

"…..please."

Was it enough to cover the holes of her existence where anyone can peek from the gap that exposed her flawed being and see the cracks of her heart, the hollowness that echoes her fears, the storms that enclosed her core: not one, not two, but a multitude of typhoons rattling her world inside?

"Lullaby, don't leave today."

A sob was released. The petals of her flower bed ground sighed with the tremors of her heaving chest. It's as if they can hear from her sob whispers of the same words again and again.

Don't leave.

Don't leave.

Don't leave.

As her acquaintance' company was never enough. It was never enough to fill the gaps and spaces of her being or to sew the torn trust clumsily covered with patches of doubt and insecurities, trying hard to conceal the emptiness within. It was never enough to satisfy the craving of another existence that stirs mixtures of euphoric emotions that encourage her to want to cling to the rope of dear life more.

The loneliness teaches her to swallow herself whole and to throw it out only to be devoured again by herself and be rejected in the same way.

"Lullaby, don't leave today", her voice whispers, sweet enough to call the winds of change yet her breath invites a suffocating sigh.

The melody that lingers on the corners of her head starts to disappear, forgetting the lines little by little, the tune slowly fading into a memory as if it’s time’s up for its stay.

She keeps on humming the melody, carefully memorizing each note, embedding in the depths of her consciousness the tune that kept her from crumbling into tiny unfit pieces of a puzzle that cannot be whole.

Wanting to escape the binding reality, her hands grab tight to the comfort this song offers, allowing her to ignore the chains that was never really there.

"Lullaby, don't leave today..." again, she asked thinking looping the words will convince the rescinding of the melody's departure.

But was it listening to her pleas?

Was it willing to heed to her wish?

"…..please."

One last round in her head, the song decided. It started recalling each note lost, each line that left and rebuilt itself holding her into an embrace.

"I will sing until your ears ask to stop. I will hug you with the melody that only held your hands in your illusion. Each word, each letter will kiss your lips and the magic of each note will cradle you until you lie tranquil."

"Lullaby, don't leave today.", Of course, her registered insecurities ask her to be afraid despite the declaration of the sweet voice's decision.

The hums of the melody fights away the looming darkness in her fragile heart handling it as if it was a newborn child. It starts to fill the gaps and cover the holes while it pulls in a light that warms her core chasing away her old acquaintance that did nothing but to kill her inside. The light, a presence that she has never known yet so familiar.

The song flows a river of calm to replace her hollow parts and each note becomes a thread to pull her pieces together to create a whole new being, not the one who was almost withering neither the puzzle that didn’t have the chance to be whole.

At last, something declined to depart.

Something willingly took the short straw and held it tight with its firm resolve.

Something changed its course and sat with her on her lone spot here in the middle of the menacing forest.

At last.....

Someone chose her.

The girl, with her newfound peace, lie on her bed where the flowers of blue, red, yellow, pink and white welcomed her weight with their comforting mattress of petals, the surrounding grass of green, her sheet.

“Don’t make me cry, not even for a moment.”

Still with the remaining puddle of fear inside her cleaned basin of memories, she begs.

“Don’t leave me alone, take my hand.”

Lullaby, its cradling melody becomes her own blanket. It’s enticing her to sleep as how it was composed to do, as if it's telling her to rest; to rest after all the running expectation she had that only met the dead end, after all the endless appeals that weren’t welcomed by closed ears, after all trials she did only to be going downhill each time she give her all.

“I’ll never leave you alone.”

The reassuring voice finally let her close the windows of her beautiful soul.

"I will not leave today. Not tomorrow or after that day. I will embrace you with my soul every day. I will sing to you until in eternal rest you lay."