paxx . twelve [cb / fin]

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Bad men exist in good spaces, surrounded by warm people and loving arms and smiling faces. It's how they get away with it for so long, warped smile turned sinister with the click of a closing door, raised voices and white-knuckled fists planting blue and purple flowers on skin, held firm within walls just thick enough to hide it from the outside world. We existed, grim, for seventeen years of my life, the harshness of Twelve bolstered by the cruelty of a home so far gone.

There was relief when the plague tried to take him, ravaged his bones and held scythe to his throat. There was silent mourning when it failed to do so. Karmic laughter, he was stronger than a force so deadly, clinging to his miserable life by threads so deadly. The doctors, worn thin, told us that they did not know what form of recovery he would make, and my eyes laid somber with opportunity.

Twelve is home to harshness, its forests call to citizens with plants and berries so deadly and so unforgiving. Stronger than a plague, but not stronger than bandages rubbed with venomous leaves, the juice of berries never meant for consumption dripped between the lips of a man too weak to fight back against his punishment. Eighteen years of foraging experience turned sinister, killing softly, slowly, unseen to the world just like so much of what he had done.

Tragedy, hand in hand with karma. Blurred lines and squinting eyes and one can never tell the difference.

I will pull from the man who lays sick in front of me every stitch of life he has left within him, slowly and surely and written in veins tipped with poison. Karmic retribution, vengeance excused by teenage rage. And when I am done our doors will open, these thin walls will breathe again, the windows will welcome the sunlight like a child welcomes blinks of Spring after a harsh Winter. And myself, my mother, my siblings, we will too.