Adena M'lynn's Voice

  by Adena M’lynn They say time only moves forward— but that’s a lie my body knows better than my brain. Because some days, I swear I feel the hands of yesterday wrapped around my ankles, dragging me backwards through years I worked hard to outrun. I’m grown now… with bills and keys and a mailbox full of things that pretend I’m whole. But inside, there’s still that small girl with knees pressed into carpet, breathing like she’s praying, counting the seconds between footsteps in the hallway like her life depends on getting to ten before the doorknob turns. And it always turned before she got to ten. Memory is a cruel magician— pulling me onto the stage, spotlight hot against my cheeks, whispering  “Watch closely.” Then it saws me in half again. Suddenly I’m back there, in the house where shadows knew my name. But not all of it was shadow. Because sometimes— right in the middle of the terror— a softer memory slips in, like mercy with a scent. Strawberry soap. My Nana’s hands was...

I was inspired by Credence Clear Water’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” “Rain On A Sunny Day” Written by Adena M’lynn I sat with the song one morning— sunlight spilling across my skin, coffee cooling beside me, and that voice—raw, steady— asking,  “Have you ever seen the rain?” I closed my eyes, and felt it— that quiet ache that hides beneath the bright. The kind of sorrow that wears a smile so no one sees it breaking. Success looks a lot like sunshine— gold, blinding, a warmth that everyone assumes feels good. But what they don’t know is how heavy light can be when your heart’s still drenched from the last storm. I asked the song to tell me who I was. It didn’t answer— it just played back my silence. The rain became memory, the sun became mask, and the space between them— that’s where my truth lives. I’ve been that band before— standing center stage, applause so loud it drowned the warning thunder, smiling while something sacred was slipping through the cracks. And maybe that’...

There’s a pill for that— tiny, chalk-white, a promise pressed into her palm. She eats her hallucinations whole, swallowing shadows until her throat tastes like ghosts. She’s tired. Bone-tired. Tired of the static buzzing in the corners of her mind, tired of her name echoing back at her like a warning. She’s tried everything— kindness, (well, sort of), tight smiles and tighter lips, praising instead of pleading, restraining her hunger until her ribs rattle like a cage. Restricting her wants, minimizing her desires, folding herself smaller and smaller like a prescription slip she can’t afford to fill. And still, the noise comes back. The ache returns. The smell hits her first when the bottle cracks open— a sharp, chemical sting that clings to her fingertips. Then the taste— coating her tongue, like souring guts turning inside her, a bitterness that even water can’t drown. The pills line up wheat fields on her nightstand, each one promising a softer silence that never lasts. She wonders i...