Broken

pain

No one knows the fruit that the tall pillar of green and life produced, what it showed for its confession of being a biological creation was its twirling vines and bounteous clusters of vibrant chartreuse foliage.

The trees, as mighty as they were, were merely just tall quiet giants that stood guard around a quaint little tree house.

So small with its soft brown roof that bore a quick resemblance to chocolate cake with its cute little bounce back when you poked at the cake.

The walls and the pillars a russet and tawny brown to compliment the cute miniature flower boxes with daffodils and a shiny brass knob for a door handle.

A snug little architecture nestled in the embrace of tall beams of verdant filigrees.

Inside the tree house, there was a brown table.

On the brown table beside the wall, a beautiful brown handle attached to the cold silver of a claw hammer lay. Innocent. Unassuming. Flat with its shiny metal head out and about. The handle a polished brown. I personally had it made. I like all my things made and not bought from a vendor. I want to see the process of it all.

Its beauty, complete with the maroon red tint on its iron head. A tiny puddle of Maroon near the iron head...a tiny dot of my favorite color.

I pat away the liquid and then turn my gaze to the floor. The object of my artistic fantasy pinned to the wooden floor. I...mother, chose this type of wood to slightly absorb the fluid from my art...not enough to absorb...not enough to retain...just a perfect amount of moisture.

I'm something of a creator myself, pinching away at tiny stripes of skin only to fondly paste them on my mood board. I have a little board where the petrified skins of my occasional conquest are nailed all splayed out on my board.

Seeing how far I can bend a wily bone out its solid socket.

Perhaps a little dash of Vermillion to add as a base to my paint box.

Nothing goes to waste.

My artistic object is aware and awake and he stares back at me. His eyes damp with tears, his pupils wide with fright...begging to be let go. He wants me to let him go.

I smile. Such a silly thing. Now why would I let him go. I didn't even have the power to. The women who kept him here would be angry if I so much as touch the protruding metal peeking out the abraded palm pinned to the ground.

He tries to wiggle...he probably shouldn't do that. It will only make things worse. As he discovered two hours ago when he tried to pull away from the nail pinning him down to the ground.

Mother had taken measures just in case his will to wiggle away from his cage was stronger than his ability to please her.

When with his shaky will to live, he had tensed his hand and slowly but surely pushed upwards to escape the metal pins that kept him in this tortured state, he had sorely and like always underestimated his captor's tenacity to make sure he did not escape her wrath.

He scorned the wrong woman.

Jesus didn't try to escape. So why should he?.

I was a Catholic and so was she. And he.

My object lays pinned...nailed to the floor...his skin is a criss cross of gouged flesh. His mangled body bore a resemblance to when mother would squirt jam all over my bread.
When she would create lines on my bread back and forth.

Those lines were my tapestry, where I would peel off its thin strips and then out of fear of my little thinnings rotting away, I'd place them back on the red meat. They still turned brown. It is a saddening thing to see a young Artisan express dissatisfaction with her annoying wallpaper strips. If not for the gory smell that wafted off the slivers of raw flesh, my mood board would have been decorated with my little scraps and slices to create a mosaic.

He can't call out. He wants to. I can see it in the bulge of his eyes and in the trial of wanting to open his mouth. I sewed his lips shut. Mother did but I like to close my eyes and assume that I did. Mother didn't know that I came up to the snug tree house to watch her vent and hack and scream at the immobilized man.

I personally think it brought us together, a development she had no knowledge about because I never let her know I was growing in love with her.

I like intricate lines. His lips look like a barcode. Black thread was a good choice. A coarse ebony sutured tightly around the light yellow skin around his lips, mother made sure she tightened his lips. I couldn't even see his lips, just skin.

I wouldn't blame her. He always spoke bad about her.

I squat next to him and then looking down. I smile. Today I would send him to the sky.

Mother would, she talked to aunt Oliver about it, a bullet to the head or perhaps burn it down along with her wedding outfit and little knick knacks she had gathered during the course of her her matrimony to this man.

He needed it. He needed to go to the saints and I would send him there. But first...I need to paint with the red of his skin.

Mother would send him there. She would. She promised. And I would, without her knowing. I will be watching from a distance.

I am so giddy with joy. I cannot wait for such a display. I want to smell the burnt flesh. I need to choke on it.

I love my father, always loved him. Even when he's about to give me this parting treasure of the honor of sniffing his cooked mangled remains.

His skin would be the canvas, I would create red lines on him. Oh yes, I want a stormy red sea. I'll do just that.

Then picking up the discarded rusted nail I used to scribble. I proceeded to do just that.

Mother didn't need to know... I gathered that she was confused about the extra lines of flesh...

I am fourteen years old.