love is a form of giving. to offer one self to the hands of another. the total surrender of authority and the consensual complicity to whatever heinous acts you are about to be bound to.

love is total submission. it is a knife forced inside a wound and the act of obediently moving closer to the hilt. for a touch, for a kiss, for a whisper of wanting to be taken in full.

love is a form of taking. for you, love is in the way you peel off my skin revealing the flesh that yearns for you. it is the way you would lick the blood dripping down my fingers. a taste for the things that i am made up of. it is the bone saw you used to crack my rib cage to witness my heart that only beats for you.

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i have felt your love when you dug your fingers on my flesh, taking the human disease of yearning and longing away from my body. it is when you held my heart in your hand as you sip away the tar black void that infects me. i have seen intimacy when you pressed pieces of me against your mouth: blood spilling, mouth chewing, and teeth grinding while i lay motionless in my silk chiffon bed with my blood spilling, guts leaking, lungs heaving, and my eyes rolling before i let out one last breath.

love is a form of cannibalism. it is the need to be consumed and the act of consuming. the fight for dominance, the need for authority, and the desire for total possession. there is no other way for two souls to bind each other for eternity other than consuming the other.

to drink,

to eat,

to digest,

feed on me til i am no more than just a vessel that once held me. consume me til i am just a carcass of who i was before.

tell me you love me as you desecrate my body.

for being consumed by a love so overflowing is the closest thing i’ll ever have to a divine experience.

when my blood flows inside of you, when my flesh becomes a part of you, when my soul has been buried within you, when the lines between two existence fades away, when i am nothing but a part of you—when you and i are both the same—will be the strongest evidence that i have been truly loved by you.

art by minahamu

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

if you enjoyed “a flesh eater’s creed", here are other works written by kazhimier:

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the officers paraded out the door with a stretcher in their hands. a vegetable too limp to move laid naked in between them. wide eyed, mouth dry, boned skin, and an empty stomach— a vessel of who she was before. some say there are still pieces of her left on her bed, some say they are still peeling her off even until this day.

they will take her to the morgue and they will dress her up in the nicest clothes they could get from the old dollar store down the street. the sheriff will stand beside a mayor who weeps while they give another written speech: to offer condolences, to relieve the starving masses, or to lie in front of many to wash a guilty conscience. they will parade her around town while the mourners in black cry before her feet. one hand in a handkerchief pressed against their cheeks while the other hand counts their tear induced salaries stashed inside their sleeves. the dead girl will be the small town sweetheart mourned by many but in a week or so will be forgotten by everybody.

we ride our bikes down familiar dirt roads and around cemeteries. we will drive past a couple of years and your body will learn how to tower over me. in a blink of an eye, shared childhood fleet by like a fever dream. wide childish eyes turn into a ripe age of fifteen.

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we stood outside the broken fence of a cornfield near the thoroughfare. your bloodshot eyes stared at the body caught between the green stalks of corn in the middle of summer. naked and thin, breasts were sagging, sallow skin, and her teeth has became a house for flies. she would leak liquid gold, quenching the ground she has been decaying on. the cornfields will drink her remains. the same ones that will be harvested and sold down the interstate. the same ones the town’s people would buy to satiate starving mouths waiting to be fed.

we ran past streets and peeled off white picket fences. she was buried in our mouths and her death did not dare escape our hushed sentences. this small town has been hungry, it consumed another one who has been starving. the backwater talks, the cornfields cry, the backroads whisper, and they all scream the same thing. a gunshot; a radio static; a buzzing feed. an omen; a warning sign; an ominous heed: everyone here wants us dead— for the things we saw and for what others did.

the news did rounds on the radio at night. decaying body found in the corn farm by nine. she was naked and thin, broken ribcage, with bruises on her wrists. despite the evidences marked all of her skin, they will proclaim it was death by starvation.

she was young and once filled with life. she was the same age as mine. the mourning will rise in the break of a new day. what once was a series of deaths has become this small town’s tradition: the gossiper’s favorite sports, the bystander’s favorite crime, and the rich and the ruler’s well orchestrated lies. they will cry tears so evergreen it will turn into a pocket full of green stash. they will grieve what has been lost while hiding their secrets inside the body of a rotting flesh. what lies behind the crimson river that drips over these statelines? for how much can truth scream when it is silenced by a town’s hunger for cash?

soon enough, what once was a single small town sweetheart has been replaced by one too many. a raven haired girl, a brunette, one with tints of red, one as bright as corn. their faces will decay and succumb into one rotting flesh. a probable heinous crime hidden behind the town’s problem of starvation. a plague, a curse, a hysterical daze— proof of an ongoing cold case.

in a week or so, i stood beside your bed. face tucked between your knees, body heaving and buckling, a scar ran down on the back of your shaved head. your sister has been missing for a couple of weeks. little did we know she will be hauled out of the small creek behind the rundown highschool. naked and thin; tied to a rusty broken piece of pole. they tied rocks on her feet to keep her body from floating. they found her with pebbles in her mouth and a stomach that has been bloating. the sheriff attends and confirms with no hesitation, the news will proclaim her death as an act of starvation.

your sister became the new small town sweetheart. they dressed her up and decorated her head in big curls. her body in a casket paraded across the town. the mourners with their crocodile tears wept for the life of the first backwater girl. your sister has been buried next to her kind— the notorious lost girls of our small town. a virgin, a wayward sister, an orphan, the town’s witch or a freak. the girls shared one same interest: a dream to escape the clutches of this town. a whisper, a blink of an eye, and they died in just a week.

the rich became richer while the poor continues to starve. their pocket’s are full while our money’s paper thin. you grabbed your father’s gun under his bed and walked out of your house. we packed our bags for a quick get away. a dream; an escape— two teens running away. you asked for an hour for a quick errand and promised to meet me by dawn underneath the powerlines.

the minutes turned to hours and the sky was painted in gold. you never came to meet me where you told me to wait. i watch the townsmen pull you out of the backwaters in the evening around eight. your gun was missing, so are your eyes, and your teeth. bruised boy laid lifeless on my feet— i stared into empty eye sockets. a body, a carcass of who you used to be. you were the first boy to have died in this town and the gossipers will talk about you and me. the two boys riddled by disease. the ones who are consumed by the plague. the whole town’s disgust and blatant condemnation was enough to rule your death as another act of starvation.

i ran as fast as i could to leave it all behind: the dirt roads, the backwater, the plague of a town. where i used to live the rivers are colored in red, the dirt roads whisper stories of girls presumed to starve to death, and the town gets paid for every tear that they shed. where i used to live the girls often go missing, where children walk barefoot barely even breathing, where the flesh merely exists: making the skin meet the bone, and where empty stomachs feed the rich while we live on rubbles and stones.

the girl peeled off of her bed, the blonde teen caught between stalks of corn, the raven haired with broken limbs, the backwater girl, and the boy i grew up with— these are this small town’s tradition. the crimes they bury under the pretense of just acts of starvation.

now the backwater wails, the cornfields weep, the backroads screech, and they all scream the same thing. an escape; a cry of an engine; a tire against the pavement. an omen; a warning sign; an ominous heed: everyone here wants us dead— for the things we saw and for what others did. the town has been hungry, it will feed on the ones that are starving.

another body hauled from the backwaters. another small town sweetheart. another act of starvation. a fresh meat; a warm blood: someone that is brand new.

can you escape this plague town before it claims you?

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“acts of starvation" is a part of the lore behind a novel that i am still working on. written back in spring of 2025, originally one of the fictional short stories in an unfinished anthology titled "an arsonist’s guide in escaping a plague-town”.

this piece chronicles the mysterious disappearances of teenage girls in a fictional small town. no evidences of abduction left behind but their bodies will always be found after months or years of going missing. a recurring event that the town’s people had turned it into a tale riddled with superstition and folklore. the missing girls turned into legends and folk tales, ultimately their mourning turned into a small town tradition.

what if there is more to these disappearances? what if there is a larger evil at play? what if there is a sinister hand at work more than just the believed superstitions? a truth that lies between the edges of crime and the supernatural. a question that cannot be answered without digging up decades of secrets buried under the soils of this small town. a tradition that goes way back to the history of this community. will the line between reality and folklore be severed when they could no longer bury a secret bigger than their small town?

this piece started as a stand alone short story before it was expanded to become a plot for a novel. “acts of starvation" is inspired from real life cases in the small town that i live in. it is also a social commentary on corruption, poverty, and the killings and atrocities made by the government in my country, the Philippines. even though this piece is mostly fictional, it will remain as a vehicle to question corrupt politicians, the broken justice system, and the shameful government. respectfully, "acts of starvation” is for the victims of the heinous war on drugs, the massacres for political gain, the displacement of indigenous tribes because of the land grabbing made by capitalist politicians, the missing advocates of truth and justice, and the victims of poverty who are constantly weaponized as a means to gain a political position.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

if you loved reading “acts of starvation", don’t forget to check other works written by kazhimier:

i am writing to you knowing that you wont be able to read it. the distance between us is not only measured by the mountains that come between us, the same ones that split my small town away from your city, but also by how we stray further from each other as days go by. thus, your chance of seeing this letter is slim. but then again, have you ever been truly interested in what i write even when it pertains to you? another question that i dont have any answer to. therefore, allow me to assume, that the answer lies in the collection of literature that i have written about you. the same ones that remained mostly unread, tucked tightly on the furthest shelf in your room. dont worry, i wont hold it against you. i know you weren't much of a reader but i still immortalized you in the poetry that i have written for you— let my shoulders carry the blame instead. yet, sometimes, i wish you wanted to lift a finger for me: to turn another page, to see a glimpse of how i see you, to be a little more curious— to at least bear a little interest in knowing me. you see, as much as what you say is true, that i did a great job in making my life private by building sky-high walls around it. there is one thing you’ve failed to see: i am an open book for you, all you had to do was read. i guess it was too much of a burden to carry.

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this is not the first time we’ve lost contact with each other— or rather, we have severed the ties. when it comes to us, it keeps on happening. we have been here far too many times: a separation, the waiting, and the ultimate homecoming. just like water, you always come back to me. a river flowing until it finally spills towards the most quiet door i have left open for you. the same door i have always let you in since last spring.

i met you a year ago, march, one fateful night. it has been a year since then but i have never loved anyone else aside from you. my eyes never wandered to gaze upon someone else. my hands never wanted to hold someone as much as i wanted to hold you. my heart never allowed anyone else in, unless it is you. despite how many times you have proven to hurt me, i still want to come home to you. i fear that if you called for me, i would come running back to you. yet, i would rather not entertain the thought of it. you will not look for me. you will not look for someone your eyes have barely seen. even then, when i was in front of you, you couldn't see me. how much more now when your eyes have better things to look upon?

i have consumed romance media when we separated, it was my pathetic try for comfort. daydreaming that we were the ones in the film, surviving hindrances just to hold each other by the end of the day. it is funny at times, to see i have fallen to such shameful routines. grief, as i understand it now, makes you desperate and then it forces you to be creative. you make things out of limited resources, oftentimes, even out of nothing  do you see how i mend the wounds you made by becoming a neurotic stuck in his own make believe? 

something has changed now when i watch media revolving around romance. i remember before watching anything, i would do a quick search about it. a quick plot scan, a read on the themes that the film dissects, a gaze on symbolism and whatnot— you might think this just a symptom of my art consumption; of being wrapped around it or rather analyzing it. forgive me but that is not the case, i am not as smart as that. i am not intelligent after all, too bland to pique your interest. not as bright as the one you are now looking at on. maybe it is one of the reasons why you could never love me. i am not even half as interesting as him.

i research the media i consume not as a reflection of my already absent intelligence but as a firewall— a defense mechanism. i avoid anything that has to do with love triangles or romance rivalry. it makes me sick to my stomach, a pain that seems so familiar that i couldn't bear to watch it unfold in front of me. it is something my fingers still reach for: a wound that i didnt mend. it reminded me of how earning your love back then felt like a competition.

do you remember how i remained in the back of your mind while you made time for everyone else? a mere pathetic prisoner always begging for a speck of your time to be spent on me. my childhood taught me that enduring a suffering has always been gifted by a fragment of love, even how small it is. so i fought in silence, a battle of endurance. i remained patient, i waited for my turn. in return, you would touch me like i am more than just a friend but wouldn't hold me like a lover. i would learn how to wait until you are ready. i would close my eyes when your eyes would wander to someone else, i would bite my tongue even when you treat others the way you do with me. as long as i have you, as long as you see me as someone who has a potential to be yours. i waited in line for your love hoping that there is still leftover for me by the end of the day. only to find out, later on, that i wasn't even part of the list. i was never meant to win. 

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i used to resonate with the main characters. i root for them as hard as they fought for a love that is always at the brink of being taken away from them. i used to see myself in them, not anymore. the main reason why i double check romance media before consuming them is because i relate to the other wo/man now, even how much i tried not to be. i bet you know what i mean by that. your hands have molded me to become the “other" without even informing me.

you came back to me by autumn with the promise of loving me. only to find out you have promised your love to someone else last summer. even though i was the first one to have met you, i have become the second option. you made me into someone i never wanted to be. the rival, the other person, the sinful love affair. now i see myself in the shoes of an illicit romance (if it is still considered romance): the perceived evil half, the hindrance to a main character's triumphant story.

i am the other woman who shapeshifts herself to be someone you would love but never learn how. i am the person you wouldn't mind sharing a bed with but will never think of coming home to. i am someone you wont mind spending the moment with but wouldn't dare to envision a shared future. the one you found last summer will always be the person i could never become. you came back last autumn just to break me by winter.

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it is spring now, it is your birthday today.  spring time always reminds me of you. i fear it will continue for the years to come, not only because you were born in may, it goes deeper than that. admitting the reasons would be an embarrassing confession. a proof of how much i have become a fool, rejoicing in the midst of a premonition for a doomed story, caught between the jaws of love itself. if they ask me about love, i always catch myself almost saying your name. for how long will my vocabulary insist that love is synonymous to your being?

“love" is such an interesting word. how can short four letters carry such heavy responsibility? a tremendous duty of encapsulating emotions that have brought both peace in kingdoms and have also eradicated empires since time immemorial— the power of nurturing and breaking. to offer myself to you allows you to love me but also grants you the power to destroy. maybe that is why you have broken me, for i have given you permission in the hopes that you would learn to love me.

love, in all its glory, is also a strange feeling to have inside of me. i bet you would disagree if you see how i attach love to you. you would argue that love isnt what i am feeling, just to deny how easy it is for me to do so— that it is an easy task for me to weave love in your being. explain it to me. tell me, rei, what should i call this light trapped inside my ribcages, always on the verge of bursting out of me? the same one that at times causes me pain but i still hold dearly. the fear of losing this pain meant forgetting how much you mean to me. tell me, rei, why does my heart seem to beat for your name? why does it keep calling for you? why do flowers in full bloom, despite of your allergy, remind me of you? cant you see? you remind me of spring, such thing can only happen cause i am deeply and unashamedly in love with you. tell me, rei, if this isn't love, why is it when the world is in full bloom, in a lush of evergreen, when nature unfolds itself in front of me—to show me its beauty and all its glory— when the world offers me all of these possibilities, why is the only thing i can think of is you?

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you told me you love me back in november, now i understand that it was a lie after knowing the things you told him about me. how you said yes when i asked you if you meant those things about me. i was just someone you used, to put it in your own words, in the manner you told him “i am just someone willing to offer things that you wanted to exhaust the benefits of". i wished you said it wasnt true, sometimes it was better to live in a lie rather than to face the truth. i wished i mattered even just a little to you. let me tell you one thing, even though it was a lie, when you told me you loved me back then, it was the happiest i have ever been. even knowing now that none of it was true, i wouldnt lie that it made me happy, no matter how shortlived it was.

does it matter if i still love you? when i know that nothing will change no matter how much love i carry for you. it doesnt matter that you came back to me this april. it didnt matter because you were grieving a love you lost that wasnt mine. i cant hold you while you grieve someone else. i cant make myself available when i know you wait for them to come back to you. i couldnt go back to my old ways. i loved you and i love you still even knowing that it isnt me you will seek. you dont see me as someone worthy for your love, i wasnt even someone you see as worthy to be grieved. you didnt love me. you never grieved me. do you understand it now why it had to be this way? do you understand my departure? my absence made way for both of you to come back together. i always saw it coming.

andrei, i love you but i have to leave.

i have so much love left for you. it boils inside of me and is always at the point of spilling. i have so much, yet, no one to give it to. the thing with the love that remains is that it is not mine to spend. it is not mine therefore i cannot take it for my own. it is not anyone else’s love thus i cannot pour it to others as well. this love that continues to reside within me is yours and yours alone despite of the absent hands that should be willing to take it. the thing with this love that remains is that by time it learns a thing or two about spoilage and decay: it rots. 

a love unclaimed now shapeshifts into a fruit that has been left in a market stall for days. it now attracts flies and maggots: decaying, corroding, rotting. it will rot inside of me with nowhere else to go. i am made to safekeep a love that rots but wouldn't die. my heart is an open wound, infected and festered. can you see how it is killing me without giving me the mercy of death? i fear your hands could no longer divide the boy from this rotten pit— i am bound to suffer an eternal decay.

i now understand that, sometimes, death is a merciful way of losing someone. a heartbreak that has evidence of its breaking, a grief that has somewhere to go to, a heart that can be put to rest. the grief that i have for you is different. it has nowhere to go. there is no tomb for me to bury it; there is no grave to visit to offer my prayers to. i grieve a love that wasnt mine in the first place. i grieve a story that never started. i grieve for the what could have been. i grieve for someone being held by someone else. i grieve for how my world ended— i grieve someone who wakes up to just another wednesday.

i will never be the one you love. i will never be the intelligent boy you would boast on your stories, telling everyone how much you love them. i will never be the one you would claim and tell everyone of. i will never be the one you would drink coffee with even how much you hate it. i will never be the guy who is academically active, fighting for social issues and endangered birds in your local city. i will never be as interesting as the person you have set your eyes on.

i am just a boy with words. i will never look in mirrors for the fear of seeing what i have already known to be true: i will never be half as good as the boy you chose to love. 

i love you but i have to leave.

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i have studied you like a book and i have tried to love you in ways that i thought you wanted out of me. there is one thing now that i know to be true: maybe the right way for me to love you was to leave. to leave the space that wasn't meant for me, to allow someone else to take it— the right one. for me to shred the robes of wishful thinking that it is me that could give you what you are looking for. that i need to accept that it wasn't me and will never be. i will never be someone you will see.

i will disappear from you completely. i will no longer be a hindrance to a love that you wanted. i never want to be the cause of someone else’s heartbreak, i know how it feels like to always be the half of something. let this be my final act, my last sacrifice. let this be the greatest revelation of my love for you: i love you with all of my heart that i am willing to let you go.

yet, i know deep down, there is still a slight hope that resides in me. hope is such a cruel thing when there is no assurance that follows it. but dare i hope, dare i dream that maybe our paths will cross again. maybe my most quiet door is still open by then. maybe we will see each other when we are both wiser. when we learn not to repeat the same mistakes when we are younger. when we know that love’s sacrifice doesnt always mean drawing blood from the other. maybe we would relearn our ways. or maybe not. the universe has its own twisted cruel ways but it is not bad to hope. that maybe despite how we have been consumed by tragedy, there is a reckoning in the end— a forgiveness.

there is only one thing i am sure of, despite of how much you have hurt me, i will still see you in the light that i first saw you in: kind and gentle. i will still hold your name in grace even if you couldn't hold me. i would not allow the pain to paint you in such a bad light in my memory. allow me to remember you in a better light. allow me to see you in the way my eyes always perceived you as. just like i always tell you, i see you.

i will always see you.

happy birthday, andrei.

i love you. i fear that i always will.

til the stars deemed us worthy,

jeremiah

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may 13, i wont forget your birthday. i will always remember you. i hope you are happy even if i am not the reason behind it. i wont be selfish, i wont reach out for you anymore. you found what you couldnt see in me. from the night i met you i have always wanted you to feel loved, now you found it.

i know you wont see this but i hope you know that i have forgiven you. im sorry if i left, this is for the better.

i have forgiven you, it is now my turn to forgive myself.

happy birthday. you are loved, always.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

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you were born during midsummer under a hare moon: it was may, one year younger but five months ahead of me. you were also five feet away from me when your father punched you in the gut. he stood there emotionless right after he finished his usual sunday mass as you vomit out your lunch on the sacristy floor. i told you once that both of us are just the same: rabbits; preys. you disagreed. hares are different from rabbits, they are larger and they survive better while rabbits would rather choose to run away. i kept my mouth shut as i dabbed a disinfectant on your wounds. after all, you have always been intelligent while i only survived by following my instincts. i teasingly nicknamed you “hare” since then, until you got a scorpion tattoo that rests just above the band of your low slung boxers. “im a scorpio moon,” you said with a wicked grin. i should have known your love would eventually feel like a sting.

we frequented the public swimming pool ever since you got that tattoo, you wanted to learn how to swim— it’s a survival skill, you argued. four limbs flailing, trying to keep afloat, i knew by then you only wanted to show your tattoo to the neighbourhood girls. you were bad at swimming. safe to say that hares and rabbits are just the same: we were not natural born swimmers. you couldn’t stay afloat just like the scorpion tattooed on your lower abdomen. you always end up staying underwater for three minutes. you would boast that you probably have gills, i would argue that fishes have but scorpions don’t. i would later find out that scorpions could stay underwater for forty-eight hours while they breathe through their exoskeletons. a rabbit like me would drown but a scorpio moon like you has a chance for survival.

i knew your father wouldn’t approve of your tattoo when we walked home wet with only swimming trunks and a towel slung around your neck. my warning signs fell to deaf ears. you shrugged it off like you used to do. maybe you mistook bravery for carelessness or maybe you forgot your father used to shoot hares during hunting season. i forgot to tell you i am a pisces moon. two fishes caught in a cycle of chasing one another: a rebirth, a reincarnation, or just a stupid depiction of my fixation to always chase after you. i have gills after all. a scorpio moon would survive for a short time underwater but a pisces moon could swim away. it was full moon that night, just like the night you were born. the tides were high and the ocean wouldn’t allow a scorpion to survive. i haven’t seen you for the next three days.

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you were missing, it was the talk of the town. the police rummaged your house on the fourth day of you disappearance. you were found in the basement, inside a large metal container filled with water: pale and bloated with only the scorpion tattoo to identify you. i was right. scorpions don’t have gills.

maybe the authorities were late to rescue you. you could have been breathing underwater like a scorpion for two days. later, i would found out on the newspaper, when the police found you, you have been dead for four. you were not a scorpion. you don’t have an exoskeleton. after all, you were just a boy with a scorpion tattoo.

your father eventually got caught. he was shooting hares during hunting season. he probably will spend his lifetime in prison.

i am caught up in this carousel ride trying to chase or out chase you. i can never out chase a ghost that only lives in the corridors of my memory but i will probably spend my lifetime trying to chase after you: like two fishes caught in an eternal loop.

rabbit; scorpio moon. hare; pisces moon.

a hare could survive its predator while a rabbit will spend its remaining life running. a scorpion would be able to spend two days underwater but a fish could just simply swim away.

it has been a year since you were gone and the hare moon shines full tonight.

into the ocean i go with its tides so high, a hare and a scorpion like you wouldn’t be able to survive.

i am finally just six feet deep closer to you.

in these waters i could be the pisces moon who could simply just swim away,

but i choose to be a rabbit.

your love felt like a sting.

art by minahamu

“swimming lessons: a study in drowning" formerly titled as “the boy with a scorpion tattoo" was first written back in spring of 2025. originally part of a drafted short story anthology named “an arsonist’s guide in escaping a plague-town" as a book title placeholder. the unfinished anthology depicts various stories about important events, key character background, and lore breakdown for a novel that i am still writing. hopefully, seeing the light of day in the future. the posted piece chronicles a vital background story of a side character in the main novel and also as a means to showcase other troubles that haunts not only the character but also the town that they live in.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

sneaking inside the closed down public pool
a hotel for runaways, a church for the juvenile commune
bible verses graffitied on walls, yellowed tiles from dried urine
we never trespassed to go for a swim
you only consume me in the back rooms

my father told me to ask forgiveness for the sins that ive done
knelt between his thighs to offer me the same flesh that i have become
told my mother about you but she never spoke a word
my father made her silent, he made her eternally cold

the neighborhood kids are slowly missing
rusty bikes found on old dirt ways, clothes caught on grapevines
our town has been plagued, infected by hysteria
pointed their fingers on anything that opposes the teachings of the divine

my skin sticking to your sagging mattresses
whispering “everything’s gon’ turn out just fine”
you promised me we would escape it all
when the darkness falls, i’ll meet you behind the powerlines

waited for you where the spirit meets the bone
by daybreak every piece of you was gone
heavenly fire scorched throughout florida
packed your bags without me and left for omaha

maybe you’ve got skeletons in your closet ive never uncovered
not as ivory-white like the ones my father kept in our basement
a bride kept inside a freezer lend her ears to me
her cold touches took out the burning inside my rib cages so easily

midsummer nights flew just like a fever dream
now the parts you’ve touched felt like nettles, they sting
left me to burn in ashes by the town’s imposed hellfire
with you gone the days are wild, the heat started biting

i still wait for you behind the powerlines
sometimes i thought i caught glimpses of u on the wood line
i only see you when im dreaming
now the dog days are feral, they are teething

art by minahamu

“dog days" (teething) is part of a poetry book i have written back in 2022. it is the third poem in a now archived collection that tackles religious trauma, domestic abuse, and a coming of age journey on the backdrop of poverty, small town traditions, and cannibalism.

my writings during this period of time has been heavily influenced by my eternal love for music, naming a few of them that is evident in this piece: ethel cain and nicole dollanganger. references to these artists work could be seen through this piece and the other poems in this collection. this work wouldn’t be here without the huge inspiration from this incredible artists.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

this is a letter of self-destruction.

he was only 6 when he watched the fire towering above two story houses engulfed his neighbor’s house. his eyes gazed upon the flames, a fire starving to consume everything it could lick on. the effervescent burning glow of a disaster reflected on his curious childish eyes. a crackle, a hiss, a burn, a strike of a match and the fire reached out its tongue to migrate inside his gnawing bones.

an old hand-me-down backpack, a pair of shoes two sizes larger for him to fill in, a silver tin lunchbox his mother bought from a secondhand shop, and a small tumblr scribbled with colors from a box of broken crayola in his pocket— he stood still, a few feet away from a burning house. it was noon with the sun seething against the pale blue cloudless sky. it served as a backdrop for a grief stricken family sprawled against the sidewalk. firefighters clamored to quench the fire, people gossiped about the arsonist that might have caused the untimely bonfire in the neighbourhood. he stood still, feet planted on the cement street as his mind raced against the blazing heat. a heat could create, a flame could destroy, and a fire could consume.

it took them two hours to put out the flames and the fire had already claimed five houses, three lives, an electrical line, and a charred dog left to be cremated on its chains. the neighbourhood was silent that night with only the crackles from fire lamps to erase the ghosts that the fire left behind. he sat frozen as he watched the flames of the candle for hours.

art by minahamu

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his father’s brother used to work at a gasoline company. a tall and brawny man two years younger than his father with a moustache wickedly painted above the man’s chapped lips. his uncle used to live at home, two doors down from his unlocked bedroom. a smooth talker, a slicked tongue trespasser, a self-taught meat butcher, an ever consuming fire— the devil incarnate. the man laughed with a buzz that sounded like the engines of the cars he used to fix at work. a grating noise, a haunting screech, a nightmarish recollection of a memory he couldn’t escape.

he was nine when he found out that the fire he watched burn down his neighbor’s house could find a home inside of people. they come in a quiet sinister approach, a crack on the door like a matchstick lit against his face, footsteps against bedroom floors crackling like driftwood tossed against a bonfire, two hands pressed against thighs scalding like a stove in his mother’s kitchen, fiery tongue enough to lick away innocence from a child breaking out in sweats, a lightning strike against a rib creating a wildfire through the senses, and a shirt pressed against a mouth to silence the screams. he learned that tears couldn’t put out a fire.

the arsonist reeks of gasoline while he was just a pack of matches they lit under a thunderstorm to warm their cold night. they were the same fire he watched consume things when he was six. he was the house they decided to burn down to the ground.

in his lifetime, he stood still as he watched little fires everywhere. he had inherited the raging fire in his soul and two bruised hands soaked in gasoline. he learnt how to burn himself to keep others warm. he had learned how to burn down houses he was promised to share with someone new. it was a never ending cycle of fuel and matchsticks only to pick himself up back from the ashes.

how much could his fingers blackened by cinders endure? how long will his losing embers glow before the coldness of the night triumph? how many pails of water could his metal container fill before it runs out of water? how long will he last before there’s nothing left but a raging fire starving to consume?

for he is the matchstick. he is the gasoline. he is the arsonist. he is the house destined to burn down to the ground. he is the firefighters burdened to put out his own fire. he is the bystanders watching himself being consumed by the blaze. he is the fire sent to destroy and he is the one left to grieve the cinders of what was before.

i am a multitude of “i am” burned to melt at the seams.

i am the arsonist.

i am the flame.

i am the house.

i am my own self-destruction.

one day, i am going to kill myself.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces” rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

if you enjoyed reading “the things i burned since i was six", you can also read other works written by kazhimier:

art by minahamu

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he, on the other hand, never told anyone about the boy he met with raven hair. it wasnt out of spite or detachment. it came from a place of hesitation, the fear of losing and acquiring. the fear of the weight of the boy’s heart string tied over his rib and the responsibility that comes along with it. to gain someone is to carry the burden of losing them as well. he was tired of losing. so, he hesitates on putting a name on things. but he wont flinch when the boy touches him, at times he craved for it. the warmth, the quiet, the safety. they would build a temple around it but they wouldn’t call it anything. what they have in between always fell into hushed whispers and tension filled silences.

how can something be real when it doesnt have a name?

the raven-haired boy smelled like gardenias and cigarettes. his fingers carry the scent of worn out books that collected dusts on a library’s least visited shelf. he was a blue hour painting against an overgrown cemetery. he was a light shower during spring, he was a rainstorm during summer, he was a cyclone that comes and goes. soon enough the raven-haired boy will teach him why hurricanes are named after people.

spring and summer will pass but he still wont call it anything. a name wont be real unless it is spoken. yet, he would find himself mouthing the raven-haired boy’s name and tracing his fingers against his own lips for a possibility to still find traces of him. he would write his name in receipts and throw it away. fearful of how it might grow into existence. he mark everything with the boy’s name: a gum wrapper, a tissue paper, on his palm. but he wont speak it. the temple remains a temple with no name.

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they would strip themselves and show their souls to each other. their bodies were maps and they are each other’s cartographers. the raven-haired boy will map him out: where his childhood aches lay underneath his ribcage, where his burdens sit on top of his shoulders, where a deep ache of loneliness hides within his gut, where his yearnings are tucked between the curves of his hip, and where his longing sleeps on his lips and fingertips. the boy with raven hair will rest his hand over the other boy’s chest, a beating heart pulsing against his palm. “this is where i reside. shall we finally give my home a name?” the raven-haired boy would say. yet, he would look away and pull the boy’s hand off his chest. love is a gift and a curse to him. it is now cascading like a waterfall through the cracks of his watertight vessel— he tried to seal it away. his eyes will leave the raven-haired boy and it will travel down a sea of people. a bunch of momentary fixations, a search for a mercurial high. yet, his lips will only remember the boy’s name. he will come back to the old temple only to find it deserted— forgotten.

but he wont forget the boy with raven hair. he will remember him in the summer rain. he will see him in lilies that bloom during spring. he will hear his name echo in libraries. he will remember the light that the boy held him. he will always search for the grace that was given.

he will get married and he will tell his wife after years of marriage that he has been looking for something he had lost when he was young. but he will never tell her what it was or how he searched for it in libraries, under a rainstorm, on overgrown cemeteries, on the twilight, and the gardenias that grew on the side of the church that they got married in.

he will never tell her that he had found something when he was young and was too scared to name it. he lost it in an effort to protect himself only to carry a heavier burden of yearning for something he couldn’t find again.

after years, he will finally give a name to the temple he once shared with the boy with the raven hair.

but what is a name when it has lost its bearer?

what is a temple that has long lost its god?

maybe it was too late to finally call it love.

my heart belongs to my readers who take their time to read and appreciate my works that carry a piece of my soul. the art that i create are often not “think pieces" rather a part of my being that i have allowed to have a life of its own: deeply personal and rooted on my own experiences, a shameless exploitation of my own childhood aches and trauma, a dissection of my own grief and my heart’s furies, given a new life by metaphors and the vehicle of language.

my written works came from my heart and are not manufactured by a software or a machine. my words and my prose are sacred to me, therefore, i will not allow its temple to be grazed by innovations disguised as technological advancements that are not only an ecological threat and a thief exploiting creatives and academics but also the one that pushes our progress, as a society, backwards. my writings have not been touched by any artificial intelligence nor will it ever be.

in line with my resentment and despise with a.i. writing, my written works may not be used, stored, scrapped, processed or stolen by any artificial intelligence systems or machine learning models. i stand on the rightful use of my works as its author and i denounce any of its usage with a.i. models.

love, kazhimier ⴕ

art by minahamu

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The sun is a neon god.

bright and burning in fever orange. maybe it was his domineering existence against a vast sky that has garnered him reverence. how eons ago humans would look up at it and feel it watching over them. maybe it had granted them safety, an assurance that there is an existence that guards them. a being that might be unreachable yet easily seen.

how can one look at the sun and dont think it is a god? burning fervently in all its neon glory.

the sun is a neon god.

it has now learned how to walk in two legs. he now sports baggy jeans and loafers with a button down to hide his sun rays. yet, despite all effort to chameleon his way into humanity. he spills out like a golden ink through the crowd. people become sun gazers. eyes staring at him without the safety of sunglasses. their eyes will burn in warm-honey-summer euphoric highs. they would scheme their way towards him for a word, a talk, a touch, a kiss— to have proof that they once saw god in the flesh.

art by minahamu

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the sun is a neon god.

it has now lived inside the body of a young man. i met him in march when the radios were routinely giving advice for fire preventions and wildfires. i have only seen the destruction that a fire could create once in my life. it happened when i was six. i stood on the pavement as i watched a fire engulf my neighbor’s house. the fire migrated into my bones and i have become nothing more than just an arsonist. troubled boy with a spark of a match in his eyes and two hands doused in gasoline. he will learn how everything he touches burn into disrepair with nothing but ashes to cradle against his chest.

yet, this boy with a neon god living inside of him is different. he does not need matches for fingers or gasoline in his blood— the sun found a home inside of him. he would touch me and the heat lulled me into great heights. whispering incandescent promises of sunsets and fleeting mornings pressed against each other on a silk chiffon bed. he would kiss me and i could taste march, april, may, june, and july melt in my mouth like summertime.

now my god is a boy who hates neon with the sun living inside his eyes. he stood in front of me, brightly burning and miraculously just inches away from my fingertips. yet, just like the sun, he always seems to be out of reach. does he notice the craters marked all over my being? does he see how i try to light up his darkness, just so he could bask in all his glory by morning? does he notice me hiding behind baby blue curtains of skyline just to get a glimpse of him? does he see how these feet ran towards for a possibility of a celestial encounter? maybe he doesnt and he never will. just like the neon sun god, my boy with the sun for eyes had fixated his gaze on others who worship him.

the sun is a neon god

and my boy is a god with the sun in his eyes.

two things existing differently yet made from the same cloth. do you see how i kneel in front of you like how devotees worship their sun god? are there any ways to reach you, for a kiss or a touch, without burning my wings off as a price? and i would peel myself off the blankets of this stark night just to share the morning sky with you. the waves of these shores will be the proof of how my love will drown the world for you.

the sun is a neon god

and so is the boy with the sun for eyes.

your love for me wouldn’t happen without an eclipse. maybe this love was bound to feel like an apocalypse.

art by minahamu

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we are at the edge of a mortal downfall. the sun laid bare against a putrid blue chemical sky, posed mournfully like a mid-embalmed cadaver. the heavens split in two like a pomegranate ripped between its pit. one side still upholding its mortal divinity like a sacred mission— knees cracked on worshipping a deity that no longer wants to be their god. while the other still proclaiming their name like a prayer while they turn their back from the altar that no longer holds their own self imposed sacrifices— this is the end of everything.

art by minahamu

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how far have i fallen from grace? i have bartered my labored breaths and bleeding body to submit my self to a dog collar for a god that wont hold my leash. now all i have ever known is to be on all fours waiting at the doorsteps of a temple that never was and never will be. emancipated, thirsty, and barely breathing: my lips still quiver your name in between breaths, hoping i will be granted eternal salvation— this is the end of everything.

have i measured how far the heavens are with the strings i selfishly tied into your ribcage? this is the price i will pay for trying to deny the candor of our situation: how our troubled hearts always made way for our perpetual disconnection. i have offered myself in your altar like a lamb, bracing for the cold steel of a knife to cut through my throat, for a taste of a placebo divine proximity. only to be met by silence and eyes distant enough to tell me that i am not an angel you would be able see— this is the end of everything.

it is late summer and the world is ending.

we are at the edge of our mortal downfall. i have dreamt of this prophecy since spring. march came like a thunderstorm tapping against my window to let them in. when i decided to lock my doors, it blew my house away for an excuse to be held in my arms. a standstill came in april. a deafening silence that comes with the isolation— it was the aftermath. a body standing over the ruins of what once was and what used to be. may came in like a river, cradling me in its waters and bringing me back to where i left. spring came and the lilies decided to bloom. a hurricane came after a few days. i could never get whatever i wanted. a light came to me in june. it has sliced through the cracks of my torn up roof. offering a sliver of a chance. it appeared to me in a map of directions and three words of longing. only to arrive to a wasteland, a carcass of a ghost town i have tried to escape before. july was a fever dream. it came like a flash of lightning and ended with a haze. only left with the scent of my woods burning to remind me of whatever has happened. in the end, i walked my way back home to you.

in late summer, the sun is a neon orange god plastered against a chemical blue sky. everything feels artificial.

art by manuhamu

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by august, three things are ending: this summer, the world, you and me. yet, i tied a sunflower on my doorstep and light candles to summon what could have been. what else can a faithful devotee do in the face of an apocalypse, other than blindly praying on bruised knees for a god that seems to have forsaken me? i couldn’t save me, let alone a god that is out of my reach— this is the end of everything.

it is august and the world went into a standstill before it went crashing down my feet— it is the end of summer.

this is the end of you and me.

i am writing this letter while we are both lounging in our living room: several feet apart, eyes barely even meeting, while the news from the television, which both of us ignore, helps in relieving the awkward silence that rots between us. my fingers tapping against a digital screen, the same scene you always catch me doing. you would complain about it, give me a mouthful, but you are distracted right now. too busy licking an olive green thread, fingers shaking as you tried to push it through the eye of a needle. i can see that you brought home another trunk load of dresses from your shop. sapphire, emerald, ruby colored silk and chiffon bound to be repaired by your hands.

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i tend to forget you are already in your 60’s, not because it isn't physically visible nor am i implying that there aren’t any signs of your age, maybe, because we rarely meet each other eye to eye, even though there’s only two of us living in this house ever since dad died. i lock myself in my room, writing and working, while you slave away running your decades-long boutique until night time. when i get to stand in front of you, i cant help but become a witness to how much time has already taken you, slowly it will own you, marked in every place— the very same fate that has fallen your mother; the same fate that will fall on your daughters; the fate that has now befallen you— time will eventually take what it has given.

i wonder how i will write you. how will i immortalize you on paper without giving eternal life to the vision of you right now? the white streaks that peek through your once ebony hair, the melasma on your cheeks, the way your eyes crinkle like crumpled paper when you try to see better, your hands…

your hands that fed me when i was younger, the same ones that ultimately learnt how to hit: a lashing, a slap across my face— you have painted a warm red artwork across my cheek. your hands that had cleaned me when i was a baby, who will eventually clean her husband’s waste when he was bedridden, laying wasted away on his death bed, the same hands that will wash my blood red sheets, marked by my self-mutilating sickness, after admitting me to a psychiatric ward for three weeks— you will curse under your breath and later on tell me in one of your visits, how shameful it is to have a son that harms himself when his mother is a devout follower of god. your hands, i have learnt were as heavy as my father’s, the same hands that were meant to be blessed by a mother’s touch and grace had always made me cower in fear instead.

mother, tell me, how shall i write you? or rather, tell me, how can i write you? how can i ever write your entire being without ever writing the hate that you have for me?

art by minahamu

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mother, do you know that animals have the tendency to abandon their child? it is a survival instinct, to not waste her resources on an offspring that is unlikely to survive and rather spend it on her healthier ones. i have seen a documentary before when i was eight. back when dad had a two year fixation with animals and the national geographic channel. he would waste his evenings slumped against the sofa with a case of beer, as he watched animals fight for survival or eat each other.

it was there that i have watched a lioness reject her own cub. he was the runt of the litter, too little compared to his siblings. he has dislocated hips and would limp when he walks. no one waits for him when they leave, he is left to walk alone behind his pack. hours of travelling and his mother wouldn't allow him to drink even a drop of milk. dad in his drunken daze released a short laugh and will look at me. “he’s just like you,” he would say as he points at the little runt on the television screen, barely surviving, thirsty for a mother’s affection.

it is true, i am the runt in your litter. the smallest child you have given birth to. i was the size of an eight ounce bottle of coca cola when i escaped your womb. welcomed into the world two months earlier than the expected delivery— weak child, an incubator baby. when you heard my first cries and held me in your arms, did you see a child that wouldn't survive? have you seen how death seems to already mark me ever since the beginning? have you seen the frailty and decided to reject me?

mother, do you know animals dont only abandon their child? there are worse ways they involve themselves in. they kill them. i am sure we both witnessed it before.

you had an orange tabby cat when i was younger. you would feed her and bathe her, hands on like a mother to her offspring. i stood there on the doorway, your five year old child watching you give more love to your cat than to your own son. soon enough, she would be pregnant. her womb filled with kittens i knew you were going to adore.

one night after your cat gave birth, you went downstairs to grab a glass of water. your screams were heard across the house. feet shuffling, running down the stairs, cries of concern from your daughters, followed by a deafening silence. i was the last one to arrive at the scene, my feet barely surviving the claws of sleep wrapped around me.

i finally understood the quiet. everyone stayed far from the basket, the one where you put your cat and her kittens, except for you. arms crossed against your chest and a frightened look in your eyes.

your beloved cat ate one of her kittens. you saw here nibble, chew, and gnaw on it like it was a piece of meat that you used to give her. she feasted on it like it was just her kibble.

you see, ma, a mother can also be a monster sometimes. in that moment, my young eyes saw what the others couldn’t— i knew that there were two of them in that room.

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you gave the remaining kittens to your friends and you threw your cat away. you said you couldn't look at her anymore without remembering what she did. “i didnt raise a monster,” you would say. a mother is a monster for killing her child, the weak one that she didn't think would survive. tell me, ma, is a mother also a monster if she rejects her child once she sees it has grown up to be just like her?

tell me, ma, is that the reason why you keep your distance from me? for i have become a monster in my search for strength in a weaker body. dark-eyed smoker cursed to be born with two weak lungs; soft boned child with a decade long shoulder blade injury; throat-finger-fucking freak, addicted to induce vomiting to lose the weight i have gained; a meat butcher dissecting his own flesh in search of feeling something. i am an accumulation of oddities. i have recently gained a newly acquired ability. i am now a limp walker with a dislocated left foot. do you now see the lion cub that has always resided in me? do you see how similar are we? i am the runt to your litter, a frankenstein, a monster— the small town freak.

a mother is a monster, i have known this to be true, for both of this entity resides in your body. i fear you have been more of a monster than a mother to me.

do you remember the first time i told you i am going to kill myself when i was six? i stood on the railings of an open window, threatening that i would let myself fall down the concrete. you stood there behind me and gave me a nudge. it got me a little off balance, nearly falling head first, two stories down the street. you grabbed the back of my shirt to steady my body, i ended up crying and you just stared at me with blank eyes— washed from any trace of emotion or pity. did you save me last minute because i still mean something to you? or were you consumed by an instinct to push me in the hopes to kill me? i fear being a monster comes first before being a mother to you.

that time when i was bullied all throughout grade school. frail boy, too soft, with shoulder length hair. a private christian school was a prison sentence i was made to carry. i have experienced violence in the children that was raised by the god you love so dearly: choked with my school i.d. sling, seat kicked all throughout the class, lunch taken and dumped in the trash, pants pulled down for all of them to see, a jab at my ribs, hair pulled, face pushed down my desk, the infamous young christian slut for wearing shorts to escape the summer heat— the outcast, the freak, the ugly kid forced to fade away in the classroom’s back seat. i would come home crying one day. hair disheveled and white polo muddied and torn at the seams. it was raining after class, they cornered me at the school field, i would tell everything to you. yet, you only looked at me with distant eyes and asked if i ever fought back. i would stay silent, eyes fixed at my shoes. “you are not a real man if you cant defend yourself,” you would say. a six year old forced to grow up faster than his peers in order to survive. i fear shame comes first to you more than love could ever be.

mother, you are a monster. but no monster was born predisposed to be one. the same as a woman wasn’t born as a mother, she grows up to choose to become one. you have learnt it since you were a child: when your mother migrated—taking two of her children— abandoning you to a relative to search for a better life. you haven’t seen her since you were eight, she would die in a foreign country not getting another glimpse at the daughter she had left behind; when your aunt would treat you more like a slave than a person bound to her by blood, forcing a ten year old girl to work around the house from four am to midnight and still go to school in the morning; when she would ask you to wash the dishes when both your hands got burned by the scalding water she threw at you; when you ran away from her house and hop from relative to relative; when you got married too early, shedding the dream of becoming a doctor to become a mother, a wife; when you found out your husband cheats with a coworker; when you lost two sons, your twins, to a lung disease. two deaths, a year after another. two deaths before the birth of me, i am the freak conceived on their funeral, your son born out of your sadness and grief.

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mother, you are a monster, and so am i.

i have watched my father hold another woman in his office unbeknownst to you. he would come home and kiss you like he didn't betray you. i am a monster, ma. i stood beside your husband’s bed in the hospital, it was during his last days, when we all knew his kidneys were destined to fail. i looked at him with vacant eyes, the same gaze you used to give me, and i wished he would die. i am a monster, ma. i have dreamt of killing my older brother, your golden child, in his sleep. thinking that taking him out of the picture would allow your eyes to see me. i am a monster, ma. i have thought of how life would be easier if you died, so i could leave this place, so i wouldn't be burdened by the responsibility of taking care of a mother who hates me. instead, i stood at the sink, in front of the dishes after dinner time. staring at the dirty knife, thinking of ways how to kill myself— how to tear myself open, get rid of this disease, save myself from this monstrosity— how to gut myself like a fish.

i am a monster, ma. i wished you never gave birth to me. i saw your recent internet search when i used your phone, it was three days after i told you how you were gaslighting me. “how to be a better mother” small caps laid out on the search bar, pixels blinking at me from your digital screen. in that moment, i wished you never gave birth to me.

i wished i wasnt born and so are the rest of your children. i wished you never met an alcoholic husband like my father, the same man who doesn't know the right thing to say, so he would allow his fists to talk. i wished you never got pregnant, i wished you never got married— i wished you didn't get to live the life you are currently living.

when all of this has been taken away from you, maybe by then, you can be just you. you can be the child you never got to be: lost in childhood innocence and summer days with your family. you can be the teenage girl you didn't get to experience: first crushes, highschool romance, and youthful days. you can be the woman you always hoped to be: a bachelor’s degree, a doctor of medicine, years of living your dreams.

when you have lived the different lives you have tucked under your pillow when you sleep at night, maybe by then, you could be the kind of mother you always hoped to be.

i am a monster, ma, and so are you.

if i could erase the existence of this monstrosity, i would do it for you. it is true that being a monster comes first to you. yet, to a child, a mother is a god in their eyes.

i would fade into oblivion, just to see you as the version you only see now in your dreams. you are a monster but you were my mother first.

so, tell me, ma, how can i write you without calling you a monster?

tell me, ma, how can i write you as the kind mother i knew you always wanted to be?

art by minahamu