Not exactly when I was a kid, but for a school piece
Her name was Martha and tonight was just like any other night. Initially, it would begin with heavy breathing. Then weary and watery eyes with stifled sobs would arise until tears would stream down her face with the type of unsuppressed poignant rawness as if her emotional pain was to be a physical wound. Her husband would then turn to face her “Honey…is it me?” but of course Martha remained crying for she could not and did not talk about the troubling memories of her past. On occasion, there would be moments when she would turn around and face her husband. Her eyes would lock to his as a reflection of wanting to open up her vulnerabilities. Yet, as always, her shutters would once again inly recede and her emotions be walled off behind a disguise of daytime serenity.
Martha was the wife of a farmer. She lived in a farm that bordered the countryside where her nighttime nuances would be healed by the delightful daytime. If you observed her morning routine and watched the way she looked out the window, you could tell it had something to do with the sun. Perhaps it was the way the sun decorated her house by sneaking its rays in undiscerning rooftop holes or through her victorian windows. Or maybe it was the way the morning sun would progressively reveal the fantastic array of golden, orange and green patches of the countryside that were otherwise marked by the thick green stitching of the hedgerows.
It could even be because of the the way the sun kept the grass grazing for the animals and her garden appetising to the eyes. Her garden had neatly arranged mini-sunflowers and white daisies. If you were to look very closely, you could also see specks of red petals lying around from once blooming roses. These roses harboured her garden until she ferociously ripped each and every single one of them out.
It was something about the colour red that Martha did not like. Maybe it triggered something buried, forgotten…a memory of regret.
It all began in the senseless summer of 1998 where she was half her age during her sweet sixteenth. She had a friend and that friend’s name was Lilly. Lilly’s skin was ivory white and like the rich grazing grass of the countryside: it had no discernibility in its overall perfect pigmentation. Lilly went up to Martha and with nervousness present in her mingling, delicate chest, she smiled and exclaimed “H.h.happy birthday, Martha…”. It was the combination of Lilly’s shyness in her smile and sensuosity in her style that left Martha breathless. It was followed by a tingling sensation she’d never experienced before, she just couldn’t quite figure it out…
Then it happened.
At first, it was just gentle and friendly kisses. Then Martha’s arms encircled her and the next thing she knew it was their breaths in exchange through the intermingling of kisses and their bodies chiseled together in senseless, juvenile love. There limbs were dancing in a cathartic release of suppressed visceral passion as their bodies flipped and turned and tumbled and struggled in an attempt to maintain what little breathing they had time for. In the warped goodness of that senseless paradise the only thing Martha remembered is the vibrant red of Lilly’s lips that imprinted a passionate geometry of lipstick across her body.
She is reminded of this by the red she see’s when walking past her then-vibrant rose garden. But it would also be triggered by the ineluctable red that would often appear in her sleep…turning her dreams into nightmares and serving as a reminder of an identity that only her grandmother knew about — one that she would call “filthy…twisted”.
No matter how much her husband tried to comfort her, she always kept it to herself. Martha would instead face away and saturate her pillow with tears asking “Why does it have to be me…what does this mean? Have I lived my whole marriage a lie?”. Sometimes she would giggle at such a predicament before falling asleep, for even she could see the absurdity in talking to a pillow —however comforting it may feel. On those days, her husband would stay up all night but she did not know this. He would also cry because “She knows…she knows” he would say. He would cry because “She knows about me and Derek”. Sometimes, it’s about wether we embrace our inner demons that ultimately determine wether they enrich us or cripple us.