Trapped

It’s my birthday. Lola, Mama and some friends were all beaming at me as they gathered in a small, quaintly-decorated room to celebrate. I looked so grown-up and svelte in my pearls and frilly birthday dress with matching stiletto heels to boot. Lithely, like a graceful ballerina I twirled and twirled around happily to a classic jazz crooning. As I was reaching for the embutido, I accidentally dropped my spoon.


The spoon fell with a faint shudder. Old wives’ tale has it that if a spoon falls from the table it is likely that a girl will pay you a visit. She must be able to make it after all. The hopeful thought made me flush.

Suddenly as if repulsed by my thought, something ominous froze the ticking of time and halted the lilting strains of sounds. Everything stood still. In a daze, it hit me. Everything was gray. Like a prosaic century-old photograph.

Colors have managed to surprise me with their absence on my birthday.

As the afternoon breeze wafted the curtain, an escaped sunlight dappled my face and stirred me right into consciousness. Sleep no longer lulls my overwrought mind to a calm escape. Even in that surreal place, pain spoils my only known remedy. In my dreams, it haunts me. In my waking moments, it hovers. Pain has become my Siamese twin overshadowing me wherever I go.

In a random burst of insanity I welcomed an unwanted drifter to come crashing right into my complacent retreat, imprisoning me in this all too familiar glass world yet again. Crestfallen, I surrender myself to this trap after countless attempts of escape knowing too well the aftermath of broken glasses. Shards and slivers may cause me to bleed. And bleeding becomes wounds. Wounds create scars. Scars bear constant reminders of the pain.

After a drifter’s inevitable final bow, it’s amazing how colors remain impervious. Its blinding presence mocking me of this growing chasm in the pith of my being. I wanted to summon the venom of hate and fury to obliterate what’s left of my sentient self and heave my masochism to its final rest. But I seem to have lost that power. I am utterly powerless in a powerful pain. Living is pain. Pain is living.

If feeling pain is a realization of life, then I must be fortunate. I should relish every single prick coursing through my veins permeating right into my very soul. This is the feast they call life. Grand.