Adena M'lynn's Voice

by Adena M’lynn She used to dream in pink and pirouettes— a swirl of sugar plum fairies spinning across hardwood floors, slippers soft as lullabies, tutus blooming like springtime in her chest. Each night, she whispered wishes into the seams of her pillow, braiding tomorrow with glitter and the promise of an “attagirl”! But no one told her that monsters don’t always live under beds— sometimes they live down the hall, smell like beer and betrayal, and wear the face of someone who says “I love you” without meaning it. She danced anyway, even when the music got swallowed by screams, even when the lights flickered like the truth no one would name. She learned how to bend before she learned how to break— flexible like forgiveness she never owed. The sugar plum fairies stopped coming. Replaced by silence, and a body that never felt like home again. A stage turned into a cell, a costume into a mask she wore just to survive. Now she doesn’t dream in pink— she dreams in warning signs, locks on ...

She stands at the edge of something unnamed, A silence so loud it swallows her name. One hand holds a check— numbers scrawled like prophecy, Enough to help… or seal her fate. The other, a gun—cold, certain, direct, No legal fees. No chance to reflect. The voices, relentless, curl close to her ear, “Just do it,” they whisper, feeding her fear. They don’t say which— Click or ink. Bang or bank. They just want silence and don’t care who to thank. She does the math, A debt that never sleeps, She’s worth more dead,  Living cost more than she’s worth Hope is a rumor, Help’s just a ghost, And faith—well, it costs what she doesn’t have most. She pictures two possibilities — and neither is life.  One gets a funeral, the other a number. She breathes like a woman learning how to drown, while standing on solid ground. Then— one hand lowers. She prays one more time. Because not all choices end in a switch. Sometimes she wants life. Sometimes she wants death. Sometimes she just wants to disa...