To be born, to be recklessly kept, and to be nobody’s – is the root of ruin.
My ruin.
He loved me, said he, though this eyes said otherwise. Hungry, hunting eyes set above a filthy, crooked mouth; in front of an even more filthy and crooked mind. It was plain to see he was untrustworthy – so I could not trust him. Father was his name, though a father he was not.
She was defined by the whole she left. The absence of someone who ought to have been a mirror, a protector, an encourager, a nursemaid, a mentor. Where he grasped me, she left me grasping. His enormous hands came and went. She neither came nor went. Mother was her name, though mother she was not.
To be unloved, to belong to no one, to never be beloved, to be battered at the hands of wicked men and forgotten by the shattered mind of a battered woman – is the entrance fee to The Lonely Room of Ruin.
You, the reader may observe, but you may not enter. If you promise to say nothing, I will share with you my observations from the corner of the room where I am clearly crumpled. The room is dim and sparse. There is light, but I do not know the source. It has no luminescence, no particles of cheer. It is only present and by it, I see dimly.
This room is the room of nothing, there is not a door but there are walls, a ceiling and a floor that create one of the corners that I am curled up in at present; knees to chest, head tucked down, hope spilled, and heart rent.
It is a room that I am in, but I know not how. It seems as if I find myself nowhere, unable to see, yet clearly looking, unable to breathe, but clearly alive, unable to hear, but clearly listening for the echo of steps; for the faintest fragrance of hope; for the smallest sweetness of presence.
You divine this place – the one without doors, furnishings, blankets or books, save what I now notice is a small window too high to reach. Like the ichneumon wasp divines the soft squishy vulnerable larva embedded in the wood you divine my crumpled presence. Even though I stand before you tall – I am your target. You promise a ready remedy to The Lonely Room of Ruin.
You enter through the window. I have no furnishings and cannot reach it, for I am small and the room is tall. You slither in as only deceivers do.
You are ugly, but your words are winsome. They echo off the tall walls and fill the emptiness of my ache like air. It falsely makes me feel full. Finally full, though air it may be, I become sleepy. I awake stunned and stupid to the horror of being eaten – alive.
Incredulously, you shed your skin before me. You exit The Lonely Room of Ruin the same way you entered. You are fuller. I am emptier. I thought you a friend. You are a fiend. I thought you brought food – I am the food.
I crawl into your skin.
I cry as only the eaten can.
It is the wail of the hungry, yet devoured, residing in The Room of Ruin.