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 ...

By Adena M’lynn (for the little girls whose Nana fell asleep too soon) They say “you’ll know when you’ve had enough”— but I was five learning to disappear under coats and beer cans while Nana passed out before the first commercial break. Her boyfriends had hands like bad magic— making shame appear where my childhood used to be. They got her drunk, got me tipsy, called it fun. I called it weekend. And no one noticed how I folded. How I curled myself into corners and prayed to a blue lampshade. A crack in the wall. A quiet so loud they’d forget I was breathing. But I had Jesus. I had Him like a secret tucked behind my ribs. He didn’t stop them— not with fists, not with fire, but He whispered, look to the light, the same Jesus from Sunday School. And when the men pulled my body like a puppet with no strings, I stared at the blue light like it was Heaven and I was already gone. Enough was the smell of whiskey on my pink gown,  the stench of cigarette smoke in my hair. It was slurred th...

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...