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 ...

“The Loop”    By Adena M’lynn There’s a woman who calls me “sister” though I’ve never met her before. Says we grew up chasing fireflies and outrunning ghosts that only children could see. I nod. I don’t correct her. Maybe she remembers a better version of me than I ever lived. Alzheimer’s isn’t a thief, it’s a carousel. Each turn sends her back to the kitchen where her Mama Nell sang, then forward to a sidewalk she walked just this morning. She eats ice cream with her childhood friend and asks me if I’ve seen her today. The past and present blur like watercolor in rain— faces she half-remembers places she swears are home but don’t have doors anymore. And the words— they come like prayers, or old bruises that still ache even after forgetting how they got there. I think about the words we speak, how they hang in the air long after we’ve left the room. How a cruel sentence can ricochet decades later inside someone’s mind like a record stuck on the part of the song that cuts too d...