Adena M'lynn's Voice

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...

  by Adena M’lynn I wake up—  but it’s not my bed. Not my hands. Fingernails shorter. Breath heavier. I think… she was here. Mouth moves— the laugh is too loud. Eyes blink wrong. The mirror is someone else. I copy her smile anyway. Good mimic. Good girl. Thoughts pile— no—spill. I don’t know if I’m remembering or being told what to remember. Feels real. Doesn’t mean it’s mine. I try to gather myself— but myself scatters. Fingers of smoke. Pages torn out. Locks without keys. Will I go back— into my body? Or will my body crawl in here with me, into the dark place where the names blur and the days slide out of order? I ask— Who am I? It echoes. The answer comes back in different voices. I think I’m still searching. I think I always have been. Maybe one day I’ll find the heartbeat that feels like home.

  By Adena M’lynn I wore a paper bag like a second skin— not for fashion, but for forgetting. Two holes cut just wide enough to see the world but never let it see me. They said, “Look in the mirror, tell me what you see.” But I couldn’t bear to meet the eyes of a face I was told was too much, too broken, too wrong. The bag whispered safety. It muted the mirror’s judgment, blurred the lines between what I was and what they made me believe. It said, Shut-up, You’re not her. You’re not here. You’re not real. I learned to live through slits— narrow truths, fragmented days, a life filtered through what I thought they could handle. The paper absorbed my silence, soaked up the tears that never dared to fall in public, and crinkled with every movement— a rustling reminder that even hiding makes noise. Sometimes, I dream of setting that bag on fire. Of letting the smoke curl upward like a prayer, Make me whole— not perfect, just pieced back together with gentleness, not glue made of guilt. ...