Note: This is a creative imitation written for one of my literature courses. Probably could be reworked, but I am somehow very attached to this piece.

I live inside a cage. Not just any type of cage. Mine’s far better than your average metallic box. I mean, look at the rainbow of colours beaming from the bars. I watch them swirl around like the excited kid I used to be. A kaleidoscope of life distracting my eyes from the emptiness of my surrounding. More alive than most will ever be.

I can’t feel hunger nor thirst. Even better, I lost my sense of smell. Well, I’m not sure if it’s because the place doesn’t have a scent. That’s just how empty it is. Not that it bothers me in any way. It could’ve been worse.  I’m happy the way I am.

A voice echoes, mocking me.

Happy? She scoffs.

I don’t look up at her right away. I don’t need to.

Some call her the ultimate healer. Her blood, as black as ink, would tear your skin apart before healing it in the form of a tattoo. Some disapprove of her methods, arguing that it’s just another way to brand them. They compare her to a sharp stick poking at old wounds; the ones that have been ignored for so long they have started rotting.

They toss her aside like the useless tool she has become. And soon enough, they simply forget.

Eviscerating a part of themselves, she completes.

My gaze travels beyond the cage to acknowledge her presence.

It takes a few seconds for it to sink it, but when it does my eyes widens along with my mouth, a hand covering it. A loud gasp escapes my throat. She has never manifested herself before, not physically a least. Yet, her eyes are staring back at me. Cold, and judgemental.

You have changed so much! I mean, the last time I saw you I was like, what, ten?

Something inside of me has moved. It clashes with other somethings, knocking them down along the way. I can’t think straight anymore.

You know back then everything was so much easier. You and I used to sit and talk about later. I wanted you to take me there—words keep coming out like vomit. As if the switch inside of me stopped working. Kids always want you to take them to the later, without realizing growing up —

I’m not sure when it stopped, but when it does, I fall silent, shocked by how excited I have gotten to speak to someone, and ashamed by the way I have sounded. By the way my voice has been shaking and uneven by the lack of practice.

 Are you happy? She asks again.

I don’t know.

I bring my attention back to the bars, kicking away the little knot that has formed inside my stomach.

Maybe a little lonely, I add.

You are free to leave, she replies.

I don’t want to leave you again.

For the first time, the corners of her lips have lifted into a smile. You left the moment you decided to make this cage your home.

What if you vanish? You’re the only hope I have left.

She shakes her head gently. Yet you’re wasting it here.

Wasting what?

Hope.

I stare at her from my cage, the image of her slick dark hair dancing in rhythm with the fresh breeze of October I can't feel from here.  She looks so real; my hands have instinctively extended trying to reach for her.

Ouch. Sharp pain hit at my chest, making me jump back. The shirt I was wearing had started burning at the contact of the bars. 

While I was lost in my thoughts, she has gotten up and has started walking inside a dark tunnel that hasn’t been there earlier. Or maybe I just never noticed it.

Some people choose to live with ghosts. That’s why I disappear.

note.

I wrote it as a metaphor of a person refusing to let go of the past; which is represented by the cage he/she is willfully sitting in. Although thecolourful bars look pretty, the cage will harm you, and is harming you. However, my teacher saw it as a complex child-and-parent relationship/dynamic, and I thought that was an interesting perspective.