Drew had always been fond of the sea. She lived close to the docks, after all, and as a kid she’d watch the boats come and go with everything and anything.
But today was different - Drew had decided she didn’t want to just watch the boats, she wanted to get an up-close view of the beautiful vessels.
She had been strolling past a particularly large ship when she met Jason, a kind, brilliant, funny, and beautiful guy. Drew had found herself falling in love with the sailor in the short week he visited.
And according to him, he felt the same. Drew had been insanely excited when he had asked her to come back to England with him, on his huge ship and meet his parents. Drew had agreed hastily, packing her things and boarding the boat.
-
They had been about two days into the journey from Greece to England when disaster struck. A storm.
Crashing waves as high as towers and lightning quick as the wind.
And Drew was to blame. After all, women on board were bad luck, so the crew did something about it.
First they tied her legs together and tied her to the deck. Then they started, they stitched her mouth closed and stitched her eyes as well.
No one heard her screams as they tossed her body into the water. The last thing she heard was Jason crying for them to stop.
-
Drew didn’t drown.
The salt stung her bleeding mouth and eyes.
She could feel time slipping past her, around her, as salt filled her lungs. As water flooded her system.
As she could feel herself changing.
She felt her legs merge together and slits open on her neck.
Time continued to slip by, her life force stayed strong, but her body decayed.
Blindly, Drew used her new and improved, water sharpened senses and stitched herself back together. Fish scales, seaweed, shells, anything and everything she could get her webbed hands on.
Drew’s pain was immense, her cries unheard as she ruined and remade herself into something unrecognizable.
-
Drew had turned bitter with pain and time. When she had found the first ship to cross her path, she had not let a single man live.
Her voice was raspy from years of salt. They had come right to her, right to their death, seeing a beautiful women instead of a monster. And they fell for it. They always will.
they’ll never hear the warning sirens, the cries of pain, of each and every man who dared cross her.
Our act, I may say, is quite a good one. We convince others that we are great - until we aren’t.
Until we’re sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing, hiccuping, crying and alone.
They wouldn’t understand, we tell ourselves, so don’t try to explain. So we sit in loneliness.
Our act slowly starts to fade, we can’t tell what’s real anymore. We can’t tell if we’re happy or pretending.
Alone, we are. Until we let someone see each shattered piece of us, even the most rotten and wretched secrets and jealousy ridden wants we coveted for long years.
And then maybe we know who we are when nobody is watching, maybe we’ll know ourselves.
I’ve seen a lot of things. Women chained to the streets, men hearing little girls like sheep, five year olds shooting full fledged guns. But i was never part of that.
My older sister locked me in this prison when i was seven years old, when it all started. The women had rebelled, the men had fought. Some guys took to women’s rights, most fought against them.
My sister had told me never to leave my prison. Never to let anyone in, and if they came in, never let them out.
My prison wasn’t a terrible place to be, i’d guess. A bed in the corner, a pantry and closet across from the ladder leading from the hatch. There were shelves of books and one shelf opened to a room full of every weapon you could think of.
My days had been spent reading, both fiction and nonfiction, and learning to use the weapons in the corner. My sister had been teaching me, she would knock morse code through the hatch telling me it was her and then unlocking each and every lock.
She had always brought me one more book to read, whether it was on math or one of her own personal journals of her life outside.
She would then cut my hair very short. She said it was a precaution. A just in case. Let’s just say it worked, the first time someone found me I was 10. I had been trained to use both knives and guns so I made it a quick death.
And now i’m faced with another unknown visitor. Long, uncombed beard, silver teeth scattered throughout his grin, brown eyes so dark they were black, tattoos on every inch of skin visible to me.
“Do you think you could come with me, girl?” There was a small accent that i didn’t know in his voice.
“i think I can’t, though i’ll give you five second to turn around and get back to where you came from.”
This was the kind of man that didn’t back down.
His grin widened as he pulled a dagger from his belt. I sighed, “All i had wanted was a lazy sunday, but now i’ll have to kill you.”
He didn’t seem to believe me.
He slashed the blade towards my face, I easily side stepped as his entire weight fell to the floor.
I pulled my gun and aimed for his head. He seemed nervous now but arrogance was going to get him killed. I pulled the trigger and he went limp.
I used morse code through a clicker to my sister, telling her to hurry up and get back, we had a body to get rid of.
She’s been chained- for how long? i can’t remember
she watches couple after couple walk down each street
she’s happy for them
but she wants love too last time went wrong
the last time was terrible heartache after heartache
she watches her friends fall while she’s alone
she’s been chained to nothing for too too long
there is no key to the lock on her heart she’s chained to nothing
chained to feeling nothing for fear of anything
for fear of falling well, maybe not falling itself
maybe for landing maybe for the shattering pain of a heart being broken
or maybe just maybe shes afraid of loving someone
she’s afraid to love and lose but wouldn’t she rather love and lose than not love at all?
no she’d rather be free of the nothing and run through the world watching and waiting for the emotion to return
“quite the craptastic sister” they say. mocking my mistake, joking with me.
joy lies in their eyes, glittering in the dim light.
they don’t see the pain they inflict. conceal. conceal. conceal.
“i’m disappointed” he said.
the conversation ended. i lightened the mood.
i’m fine. i’m fine. i’m fine.
“you don’t care enough to fix the heart you broke “
a song accuses me of exactly what i’ve done.
i hurt him bc i don’t love him back. bc i don’t know how to love him back. because i don’t care enough anymore.
pretend. pretend. pretend.
conceal you’re pain. “you’re fine”. pretend to be happy. pretend to be fine.
pretend. pretend. pretend.
My boyfriend has left me to go somewhere else with an overthinking mind. My best friend has left me for a dinner with a heavy heart. My brother has left me for screens with too many scars. My parents have left me hurt and untrusting with their expectations.
You know sometimes I think they may be doing this on purpose.
My boyfriend left because he can’t deal with my sadness and his own. My best friend left because she has problems to deal with. My brother left because he’s stopped caring. my parents left because they have my brother to fill their dreams.
So now i sit and write my feelings on an app where many unknown faces can see yet none really know me. Maybe that’s why I sit here writing and trusting this community with my pain. Because they don’t know me.
Or maybe it’s because i’ve been quiet for too long and i can’t hold it in anymore. Maybe it’s because everyone has thought me blind to their neglect and lack of trust and care. Just because i’m quiet does not mean im blind.
I’ve seen everything, waiting for the perfect time to interfere.
So now, by trusting in anyone who reads to not tell them, i hope that maybe someone will trust me to not tell someone else.
“Maya, please, don’t do this. Put down the knife. Please”
Should I listen to him? Does he really care?
“Don’t pretend to care. You did this with Catalina too. Don’t pretend like you care about what happens to me.”
“Put. Down. The. Knife.”
“Why? Tell me why. Why should I stay in this cruel world where i have no one? Why should i stay in a world of pain and sorrow when I could go home?”
“Because you have m-“
“I don’t have you Chris, I never had you. Don’t lie.”
Anger flared in my heart as I pressed the blade closer to my neck, drawing blood. A stinging sensation rippled along the edge of the blade.
“You didn’t deny it, Chris, now let me go!”
I pushed slightly harder against my neck. I could feel the warmth and stickiness of the blood as it moved down my body.
Chris jumped at me and I dropped the knife in surprise. He was holding me now. My head to his chest. And my stupid, stupid heart tripped a few beats with him so close.
“I’m so hopeless, Chris. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Maya, please don’t cry. I’m going to get you help. Therapy, antidepressants maybe, anything to get you better. And then we can start over. And for the record, I am yours and always have been.”
I stayed quiet as a tesr rolled down my cheek. Maybe everything wouldn’t be as bad as I thought it would.
I walked down the road as casually as I could manage. My anxiety was rampaging through my head as each person brushed past me.
There are too many of them. Too many, too many, too many.
I was diagnosed with social anxiety when i was only little. Now it has heightened and become worse.
The only person I talk to is my boyfriend because he understand why i am the way i am. My mother doesn’t know. My father is dead. My siblings are across the country. No therapist or councilor either. Just Ein.
He was the only one who talked to me normally because he understood. He had worse anxiety than I did. much worse.
He was just one beggar telling another where to find bread. Just another ant helping out a friend.
Yet I can’t shake the feeling that the bread may not be what it seems. That maybe the help is harm in disguise.
I was hanging onto the rail of the ship for my life. Below me was the frothing water of the Cardina Sea, and below the surface, there was a monster.
I had only been trying to get away from the monsters on the ship. And now either I could let go and face the monster below or climb up and face the monsters above.
Either I fall to certain death or climb to the crew of malicious pirates above.
And then there was a hand. The world moved in slow motion as he pulled me up. The only monster on the ship that had shown me kindness - if you could call it that.
He had saved my life. He had been the one to speak up against the others’ cruelty while still keeping an icy mask.
He was the one that now sat with me in his arms on the rainy deck, in the night, with tears in his eyes, saying I should’ve been careful, that he can’t do this without me.
The wolf and the lamb. The monster and the innocent.
And then his mouth is on mine and I couldn’t help but think that maybe not all monsters were truly evil, but maybe just misunderstood.