What Wonders Terrifies Us

Sometimes I wonder when a time will ever come when I can let go of this hurt in my chest. Or will I ever have the courage to do so? I think endlessly if I am carrying this for my own sake or the woman before me and before yours. You have shone brightly in your teenage years, I wonder if I ever prevented those. You had dreams you so wanted to keep in those lady-like palms. And I was desperate to see if I brought you only callousness and a cry. I am aching to know if I'm a prisoner of a spiraled life. And if I do, will I take the same steps my mother took? Will I carry on woeful prayers from my ancestors and whisper them to my children too?

From a mere kid who vividly remembers what childhood honed her for, I am as old as the trees sitting in a storm-ruined backyard. Silent but a braveheart in front of a passed-on mirror—my mother used to comb my hair like I was a living doll. She would tuck me to slumber and I will dream of all the stars above the ceiling. I wonder if she ever told grandma her nightmares instead like what I always tell her at breakfast. I wonder if those plenty superstitions planted in my brain were once a remedy for her sleepless nights. And if not, did she ever find solace in the arms of her mother as well?

As if on a midday loop, I thought I hid well in the corners of my mind. I thought my pleas were mute enough to be unheard. I thought I knew love the moment I look into my mother's eyes and she just see through me. As if I am understood without much talking. But the same eyes look at me tragically and once in my life, it was a fault to be able to weep. They tell me I'm a living copy of my father but my skin talk embers the way my mother did. I am a reflection of a greater existence but I wonder still if I was ever a shadow to a lost soul. This burning grief is not just mine alone but my mother's and ours. And I hate how terrible of a child I have become. How all the anger I kept will be poured onto this unknown residence. For being this way. For being mothered in an unaffectionate household with either tears or rage for survival.

I was desperate to believe that her silence is a way of peace. To subtly knock on our doors and remind us of bedtime like old times. To suddenly feel an embrace amidst brokenness. To see an attempt to be a rightful mother. But I see she's as scarred as how her children became. I guess people develop a habit of keeping a secret until they can't. And they act like no one sees their traces but they drain the life out of people by trying to rule it all. From then, I didn't know what my fear was for. If I was scared to go about life alone or if I was terrified to be the woman next to her. I wouldn't know what secrets I am capable of. I would never know if I will ever fuel my death or be just like whoever raised me.

I wonder if she had written the same words. I wonder if my mother was scared of these things too. Of the sacredness that binds her to us. Of being a mother at all.

@rks.wuhdrelis

_{A warrior of liberty. With ink stains on her mind and soul. Maayong adlaw! This page contains the information you might want to know about the author. She goes by the name Arques and is under the username @rks.wuhdrelis. She lives in Cebu, Philippines, and is a proud Bisaya. Arques is an 18-year-old girl, on a mission to her dream college and a writer wannabe is her reputation... Read more.}