Adena M'lynn's Voice

by Adena M’lynn I found her— no, them— at sixty-three. A lifetime later, and the mirror finally cracked wide enough for me to see what had been hiding in plain sight. Dissociative Identity Disorder— they call it a diagnosis, but to me, it’s a roll call of every ghost I ever made to keep myself alive. Each one wore my face, but different eyes— some kind, some terrified, some tired of the fight. And now I stand in the aftermath, counting the wreckage of a life I thought was mine alone. How do you say sorry for the hurt you never meant, for the words another voice spoke through your trembling mouth? How do you own the pain when the hand that caused it was yours— and not yours? I see the faces I love— each one marked with the fingerprints of confusion, with the bruises of my becoming. And I wonder— did they ever know how fractured I was? How every smile I gave was held together with invisible glue and shaking prayers? There is carnage in remembering. In realizing that survival was not clea...

Listen here.  YouTube  Life is a Bible. Outside, leather-bound, creased like valleys carved by time, worn smooth by hands that needed answers long before they had words for their questions. On the front— Holy Bible. Not just a title. Not just gold letters. But a cry. A longing. Stamped deep enough to last a lifetime. A reminder that somewhere in these pages— there’s my directions home. I flip to the table of contents, and wonder if my life has one. Would it list beginnings… betrayals… wars fought in silence? Would joy be a Psalm— short, melodic, gone too soon? Would warning be a prophet’s voice— fire spilling from his mouth? There’s a space for my name— scribbled in childhood handwriting, crooked, innocent, a little girl wanting to believe, she belonged in the story. And there’s a tree. Roots in Eden. Branches heavy with apples and nuts— fruit sweet enough to nourish, shells hard enough to break me. Wisdom and foolishness, growing side by side. I learned young— one bite can bo...

Every morning, I pull in They tell me, just keep going, like I’m some truck stop cowboy with an endless road stretched out in neon lines. But mental illness— it ain’t a smooth ride. It’s a gas can strapped to my back, sloshing heavy with fumes that choke before they fuel. Every morning, I pull into the station, coin jar empty, pockets turned inside out, yet they say, filler-up and roll on. So I siphon from yesterday’s pain, pouring it into today’s tank, driving on borrowed fire that burns more than it moves me. Sometimes the gauge lies. Reads full when I’m bone dry, reads empty when I’m blazing. Either way, I’m stranded on a shoulder where hope is just another car that passes by without stopping. Mental illness is the gas you can’t afford, the tank that leaks slow but steady, the smell that sticks to your hands long after you’ve washed them clean. And the diesel— thick in the air, always a reminder that “fuel” and “funeral” share the same breath. Still I grab the nozzle, fumble with sh...

by Adena M’lynn There’s a flood warning in her chest every morning— Grief swelling behind the levees of her ribs, where childhood never learned to swim. She carries a drowning girl in her lungs, gasping between grocery aisles and conversations that start with “How are you?” and expect a lie in return. Her smile is earthquake-proof— reinforced with sarcasm and silence. But beneath her skin, fault lines shift without warning. She’s learned to talk without trembling, even when the past erupts like lava from a fault she didn’t create but still gets blamed for. Her body is a wildfire zone. A red flag warning every time she’s touched without consent. Even kindness feels like a spark— too close, too warm, and suddenly she’s back in the blaze of hands that branded her before she could spell the word “no.” She’s lived through landslides of trust. One betrayal pulls down a mountain of belief. She builds relationships on shaky soil, hoping no one notices how much of her foundation eroded before s...

By Adena M’lynn They told me healing was a straight shot— but my mind’s been under construction since the first time a scream set up detour signs in my chest. See— my thoughts don’t come with warning cones. Some days the asphalt is smooth, other days it’s potholes deep enough to swallow my whole damn name. There’s a backhoe in my brain digging up memories I paved over years ago. I buried my trauma under concrete but it still finds a way to buckle the surface when the weather turns shameful. I am a one-woman work zone. Hard hat dreams and no clear exit signs. Mental illness ain’t a scenic route— it’s rerouting at midnight, it’s the GPS whispering recalculating when I swear I’ve been here before. Some mornings I am traffic backed up for miles. Some nights I am every orange barrel you cursed on the way home. I am slow down. I am wait your turn. I am don’t honk— I’m doing the best I can with these broken tools. I built detachment like an overpass, thinking it would help me get over it. But...