Maybe
Someday

Once upon a time.

There were three children.

Who were swept off the edge of their worlds.

By their own blood.

A girl who was caged inside her own skin.

A boy who was chained to his mother's shadow.

And a girl who choked on her own silence.

This is the caged girl's story.

When she was six, her father told her to forget her mother and love her pillow.

And so she did.

She forgot everything human.

When she was seven, she began seeing the stars as the souls of the dead. The first star she saw would always be her grandfather's. And she would smile and cry, smile and cry, smile and cry until dawn came.

During the same year, her hands began trembling. Her feet forsake her. Knees twisting, she would lie on the divan twitching and trembling and twisting until she stopped abruptly, crying into her pillow. The world had lost direction and colour.

When she was ten, her father came. He came and he threw the bouquet of sweet roses that her mom had sent and tore off her heart until she couldn't remember that empty chests are not okay.

Each year, the sickness came again.

Each year, her mother pulled the strands of her own hair.

Each year, she continued to scrape her heart, being pushed into the floor.

The first time they took her to a trip, she, in her young naivete, ignored the trembling hands. Until her fingers touched the packet and she woke up in a white room, with white walls and white beds.

She couldn't walk.

Her mother carried her.

She forgot.

The day she went back to school, her smiles were met with jeers, her confusion with taunts and her tears with mockery. She didn't understand. She didn't understand.

She didn't know that it was they who didn't.

That was day one of unraveling.

As the years peeled away, she found solace and refuge in words. In the pages of the first book she had ever read. In between the lines, beyond the edge of this world, with people that have never existed. Until came two boys, phantoms of her mind, one made in shades of gold and white, the other in black and silver. Her moon and stars.

This is how the world began to lose her.

Her father came, her mother cried, her brother screamed and she curled into herself.

Again and again and again and again and again.

Pleas whispered in silence.

Make them stop.

Make them stop.

Mom?

And the girl wondered, as she watched more shadows of the people she had loved walk further away, how you could make your daughter become nothing more than a passing forethought.

She grew wary of herself. Second day of unraveling.

There was something wrong with her.

Something very, very wrong.

People turned away, smiles faded, hands stopped touching and hearts flinched.

They stopped looking at her.

That was the problem.

All of them forgot to see her.

Until she began doing the same.

The first time she begged her father was hours after lecherous mouths had murmured ugly words, after dirty hands had pulled her own. Without consent, without consideration.

Without without without without.

Her father said, you have grown up. Deal with it.

She was ten.

Third day of unraveling.

Mom?

Brother?

Am I still a child?

She hadn't known, until then, how you could be buried in your own silence. She didn't know how her throat would choke on the words. She didn't know the words would slip down and lodge into her heart.

She didn't know she had a pincushion for a heart.

She whispered, don't leave me alone in the silence.

They never heard.

Her body was coloured grey, but her mind never lost colour. Everyday, she would sit with the two boys as they painted her with reds and pinks and greens and yellows.

Everyday, she would ask.

Do you love me?

Yes, of course.

Mom, do you love me?

I've forgotten if you ever did.

Is this revenge? For me forgetting you?

Mom, can you see me?

Mom?

Mom?

Hold me because I might disappear.

Mom?

Her friends were strange creatures buried under layers of pretense. And she was the strangest of them all. Hands always tapping, humming music unheard, lips responding to conversations inside her mind and loving people that did not exist.

Her mind was a constant stream of words and sentences, full of vivid images and colours where kingdoms of old stood high and proud and everyone loved beyond rational thought and above all caution.

They did not understand her fascinations, her wonder, her curiosity.

Her.

They did not understand her.

So they smiled and smiled and smiled until they didn't and then they smiled again as they cut her skin.

She wrenched herself away before their fingers could touch her heart though. She went home and wrapped twine, stone, vines and brick all around her chest.

And she locked her voice away. Fourth day of unraveling.

When the voices slipped out of memories, she smiled and intertwined her hands with the two boys and they took her far, far away from them.

She wept ink. She never wrote of the abuse she had suffered. Instead, she wrote of bruises she never had, of scars that had never married her skin.

She wrote of monsters wearing smiles.

She wrote of cold mothers and sneering fathers.

And she wondered if anyone would ever try to find her hidden underneath the lines.

No one ever did.

But sometimes, the whispers got too loud. Too much, too tight. They clung to her skin until she burned it.

She never thought of lifting the veil of silence.

Her poetry began with "I want to be a star" and ended with "poisoned arrow through my heart".

It's your fault mom.

You kept slipping through my fingers.

And now I keep slipping through yours.

Some days, she would lean over the railing and imagine broken bodies, twisted bones, and blood on asphalt.

And then she would turn away.

One day, she told her brother. Of the whispers, the convictions, the tears, the silence.

He told their mother.

Mother understood.

For a month.

And then she couldn't anymore.

So the girl let hatred fester over her skin and she hid it with burns.

Fifty day of unraveling.

When she was fourteen, her mates began to bury her. They buried her with words, with laughter, with pens and paper, with bottles and slaps.

Sixth day of unraveling.

Her mother brought the shovel.

Her father walked over her grave. Over and over and over.

Her brother?

He was lost, just like her.

Neither knew.

The girl retreated inside her until she couldn't get out.

Thus, the girl caged inside her own skin.

Nights were cold, full of silent screams, muffled cries, hair ripping, burning skin and voices.

So many voices.

They filled her head, curled around her heart, stuck to her skin and cut her bones.

You're worthless.

There's something wrong with you.

Your own father left you.

You can't love anyone.

Neither can anyone ever love you.

After all, why would they?

Over and over and over and over-desperate screams and desperate hands protecting her desperate heart.

Seventh day of unraveling.

Silence was never quiet.

Ask me, she wanted to scream.

Ask me if I'm okay.

Shake your head when I say yes.

Pull me to your chest when I smile.

And hold me until I stop.

They never did.

What's wrong with me, she asked the two boys.

Nothing, they said.

What's wrong with me, she asked the world.

Everything, they said.

She chose to believe the world.

Eighth day of unraveling.

She began to walk on her knees.

No one noticed.

They saw what they chose to and what they chose to see wasn't much at all.

Do you love me?

Yes, said the two boys.

Do you love me?

No, said the father.

Do I love me?

There's nothing to love.

The thing about sadness is that it becomes a favoured companion, simply because it's been there the longest.

So the girl stopped trying.

She stopped smiling through the tears, she stopped laughing through the voices, she stopped her own heart from beating.

She stopped living.

And the world lost her completely.

Ninth day of unraveling.

She walked in the comfort of sadness. Sadness was a girl shades paler than her, and she was the one who fed her emotion when her stomach was numb from too much of it.

The tenth day of unraveling came when she fell in love with her own melancholy and forsake everything else.

The two boys became her. They walked with her. She felt their phantom touch when she was staring at the wall, listless and lost. She heard their phantom laughter that made her own mouth curl.

It never bothered her. They were real to her.

More real than the world had ever been.

Until it became too much.

Too much anger.

Too much hatred.

Too much self-loathing.

Too many voices.

Too many words and whispers and screams and cries, broken off, cut around the edges, never fully forming, hands continually grasping for something, for more—too much too much too much too much.

Help me.

Some snippets of conversations and thoughts—

There's something wrong with you –mom.

You need help –mom.

No one will ever love you –mom.

Not unless you change–mom.

No one will love me.

I am wrong.

I am strange.

I am destroyed.

No one will love me.

No one will love me.

No one will love me

No one no one no one.

No one.

What about you, mom?

And then she changed schools.

She was so tired of hating herself.

It was exhausting.

It hurt.

And so she started picking up her own skin off the floor, on her knees for the pieces lost, desperate and frantic to put herself back together.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I am not.

But I will be.

She walked in the night and wrote,

The moon is a faithful companion

The stars are my median to the dead

The silence is a thoughtful pause

And the night breeze, a carefully woven orchestra.

The other students were wary of her. Of the sharpness of her profile, of the edge to her smile, of the words that slipped out of her lips and of her hard, unforgiving eyes.

The eyes always give us away.

The first time she met the boy who was chained to his mother's shadow, it was because of a book.

She asked him, what are you reading?

And he showed her a children's book.

Her laugh was torn out of her unwilling and stiff mouth.

The next time they met, he asked—why are you alone?

And she said—I like to be.

A strong pause in their interactions.

And then they drew towards each other again.

Are you broken too?

Yes.

Maybe together we can become whole.

Maybe.

Why do you like me?

You're different.

Am I?

Yes.

Why are we friends?

I don't know.

Will we remain friends?

Always.

Are you the one—she wondered.

Are you the one who will finally see me?

She never believed it.

But.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

You're so strong.

I have to be, for both of us.

The first time she lied and smiled, he looked at her and said—you're not fine.

Her smile wavered and she replied—of course I am.

You're not.

You're not.

You're not.

She was not.

She said—I have to be.

And he shook his head—not with me.

Oh.

He knew.

He knew.

He knew everything. Of the child she kept hidden inside her. Of the facades and the smiles that kept stretching and stretching until they cracked her skin.

The girl thought, maybe this is what friendship means. Two broken people trying to fix the other, only to cut themselves on the edges and smiling through the blood.

A summary on the boy who was chained to his mother's shadow—

His father was abusive.

His mother was alone.

His brother died when he was young.

He had been in too many hospitals too many times, while much too young.

He had no shadow of his own but was forced to walk in his mother's.

They were, essentially, the same people in different bodies.

The others jeered again.

You two are too young to be doing things like this.

Yes.

Because they weren't too young for cruel fathers.

They weren't too young for distant mothers.

They weren't too young for pain.

But indeed, they were too young for friendship.

A boy and a girl can't be friends, they said.

They also said a mother can do no wrong.

They were wrong.

The first time she met the girl who choked on her own silence, they were reluctant partners.

The second time, partners once again.

Fate kept pushing them towards each other until their hearts begun to do the same on their own.

It was then that the girl realised, some people are just meant to be in your story.

A summary on the girl who choked on her own silence—

She was motherless.

And perhaps, more ruined than the others.

It was beautiful.

Surprising, isn't it?

The three of them would laugh each other out of this world and it was just them.

Only them.

Wide glances, uncontainable smiles, raucous laughter, and heard cries.

That was them.

For once, none of them were invisible. They were seen and heard by each other and the rest of the world faded into a flick of the wrist.

Do you think love exists?

I think it does.

Do you think we will ever get to feel it?

Even if we don't, I'll still love you.

Always?

Always.

The shadows of the night kept their whispered secrets.

They fell asleep curled into each other.

The silence had never been as tranquil.

Until the girl burned herself again.

Mom?

How did this happen?

An accident, mom.

Be careful next time.

Ask me again, mom.

Make me tell you the truth.

I am tired of our silence.

Our conversations have.

Abrupt silences.

Strained pauses.

The weight of what is said and unsaid.

Broken off sentences.

And strangled cries.

I didn't know.

That I would forget how to speak.

I didn't know.

That you would forget to love me.

I'm sorry.

And it was her brother that told her.

You're not fine.

Aren't I?

I'm happy now.

No, not really.

Eleventh day of unraveling.

What she wanted to say—help me.

What she would never have said—I need you.

What she said—how then?

He told her it would take time.

She said okay, and his face disappeared into her own.

And the girl's hands lost their strength and the pieces she had gathered of herself fell on the floor once again.

I'm okay—into the phone.

Stop pretending to be—the boy said.

And she did and fell apart.

I'm okay—she said to the pale walls.

You're not—said the girl.

No, I'm not.

My mother can't love me.

My mother can't love me.

No one can love me.

I love you—the girl said.

You do?

Of course.

We're soulmates, remember?

Of course.

But the girl never believed her.

She begun to hate them.

She was tired of being strong.

They thought she could be everything while they remained nothing.

She couldn't.

And she hated them and hated them until she couldn't.

I'm okay.

You are?

Yes.

Okay.

Why did you believe me?

Why didn't you ask me again?

Why why why why why?

Can you even hear me anymore?

I can't talk tonight. Not in the mood.

Okay.

Silent Scream.

I'm still going to call you, you know.

Relieved smile.

Of course.

The two boys began to tell her.

You don't need your sadness.

Don't I?

No.

But.

No.

No.

It took her ten years to realise that

Ten years.

Three boys.

One girl.

Silence is my cage.

And now there are.

Eight eyes.

Four lips.

Four hands.

And infinite smiles.

Right outside.

Banging on the bars.

And the first time she truly shrugged off the cloak of sadness, it felt like freedom.

It tasted of free skies.

And in that movement, she had torn herself out of her skin.

Do I love me?

There's so much to love.

How could I not?

Finally.

But that wasn't the end.

It began like this.

Hey mom.

Mom, I want.

Momiloveyoutoo.

Mom!

Mom?

That's how it began, didn't it?

With her mother.

With that goddamned pillow.

"Hey, mom."

I love you.

"I think I'd like that."

I forgive you.

Do you?

Soft smiles and gentle touches.

"Don't forget, I love you."

Oh.

Oh.

You do.

Of course.

Of course.

First day of becoming.

The two of them.

The girl who had begun to breathe out of silence.

The boy who could see his own shadow peeking out from behind him.

They kept her feet from touching the ground as she raised her hands to the sky and gathered the stars, to keep them in her heart forever.

They continue to make each other, even now.

Happily ever after?

There are too many days of unraveling to come for that to be anything more than illusion.

But

There are also many days of being made.

So maybe.

Maybe Someday.