Page 102 of Every Shattered Note
ECHOZONE— Private Message Sent.
Status: Delivered.
Still nothing.
Fucking nothing.
Maybe Aly’s asleep.Maybe she saw the message and turned away.
Maybe she’s finally doing the one thing I never learned—saving herself.
I roll back in the chair and press my palms to my eyes until colors bloom behind my lids.Then I reach for Lolita.She’s out of tune today.The low E string buzzes wrong, but I don’t fix it.I just let it hum.
The first strum cuts through the stillness—uneven, strained.Like a bruise surfacing beneath the skin.
I play the same three chords until they start to sound like a heartbeat.
That’s when it happens.
The words crawl out of me like they’ve been waiting.My throat hurts.Doesn’t stop me.
“You werethe silence I mistook for peace,
the lull between storms I thought would never reach me.
But they always do.
They always find me.”
The melody clingsto the air, soft at first.Then darker.It builds like it’s been clawing its way out of my ribs.
“They callit mercy when they break me open,
and art when I bleed.
Every headline, another bite?—
and I’m still chained to the same damn rock.”
Rosiehums low beneath my palm, her body vibrating like she’s trying to answer back.Each note scrapes against something buried deep, something I haven’t touched in too long.But I keep going.Because that’s what it’s always been.
I’m Prometheus—tied to the cliff, guts carved out day after day.
They don’t even pretend to care anymore.It’s not about truth.It’s about the performance.
Every time I begin to heal, they come back.Open the wound.Print it.Profit.
I stop playing, fingers trembling.My pulse pounds like it wants to crawl out of my skin.
For years, I told myself this was penance.For being there.For letting him use me.For sharing his blood.
But it’s not redemption anymore.It’s rot.
And I’m done pretending it isn’t.
I place Lolita down gently, her last note still humming in my bones, and reach for the notebook wedged between a coffee-stained coaster and a hotel pen I forgot to return.The pages are warped and torn at the edges, ink already bleeding through from God knows when.I flip to a blank one and start writing like it might stop everything from splintering.
If you want a monster,I’ll show you his grave.
