Shannon Lumetta

Quiet echoes here like death through hollow bones, until the whispers come, murmuring legends as if they could express truth or expel demons.

“Once upon a time” implies a singular point of existence, but it is a trick. Time stands upon itself, as if returning to the very same place over and over again. It is compounded and trampled. All is buried beneath an intangible weight that is neither soil, stone, ore, nor wood. Time bests even the most resilient of us — people, places, things.

I myself am crushed beneath each crust as it settles above, locked in even as I stretch across vanishing history. The grit wedged between blocks and pebbles of cold has collected under my fingernails, a parting gift of the centuries that left me behind.

In the damned quiet, I scream unheard. 

His warm touch haunts me, a punishing venom laced effortlessly between perfect seams. Taut stitches slacken, allowing each searing recollection to drip through the neatly folded fabric, piled upon me — all around me. My scars seem too deep, too thick for a sting so raw, as if fresh and unfamiliar. 

That was surely her intent, the bitter one who condemned me. She may have had the right blood, but I had his heart. That it decayed in my palms, staining my fingers and cursed soul is another layer of it all. Another punishment for love. I don’t have to remember cruelty — grief is the air, both the light and darkness I know. From a floor of earth, down the barren hole where time began and I ended, I am still screaming.