Two pairs of pliers in my hand. A silver chain between them. To most, this is creation. But, no. This is destruction. Tugging at the jump rings is also pulling at my heartstrings. Is it sympathy? Do I empathize with the connections that my own hands wrought? No, it's a steaming burning hot coal sitting heavily upon my pride. Why am I rendering my own creation useless? Taking all the shiny ends off the suncatcher, so that it may deflect rays of light no more. Well, I must. I have no choice. I must destroy the best thing I ever made to make smaller versions of it. These flawed fractions will be nothing like my original work. They will be merely reflections of it. Like deflected rays of light becoming a rainbow, they will become less. Less color. Less joy. Less pride. I will take less pride in these smaller artworks, though artworks they are. They are only a sliver of shattered glass compared to an ornate mirror. A mirror that once reflected me.

Justice isn't enough. I want her blood, but I don't want it spilled on my child-like fingers. I want it washed off of them, with simple gentleness. The kindness she never bothered to save for her own flesh and blood. I want her blood to soak into a warm, wet washcloth, held in loving, caring hands.

I never wanted her blood! She put her blood on my hands, framing a child for a crime no one committed. She covered up her own atrocities by bleeding all over a small body with small hands that only wanted a hug. Some comfort. A mother.

So no. Justice will never be enough. Vengeance will never sate my rage. But sweet words may. And warm cuddles might. Maybe a hug from someone who isn't a bleeding blood relative will make up for what she did and didn't do.

Please, wash my hands. Wash off her sins, and let me have my childhood back. Cleanse my soul of her tainted blood, until the water runs clear.

She looks out the window silently. Despite the moon’s pale glow, she cannot see very far. She is thankful, for the world’s beauty on a moonlit night might convince her to stay. She turns to the chair. Here it sits, as it has sat for days. It has been waiting, building tension and anticipation, only encouraging her heinous act. She drags the chair to the desk, and starts writing. Words flow from her pen, and tears flow from her face like blood has flown from her wrists. She stops. Thinks. Carefully places one final period to end her words, her work, her worthless life. She drags the chair once more. It finds its place in the center of the room. She finds her place with God. And the poet wrote no more.

Moonlight casts a pale glow on the forest of five feet behind my house. It once stretched for miles, but now it doesn’t stretch at all. It’s confined to a thin strip of land, only five feet wide. It was my forest, a place of wonder and cryptids. Now it is a flat plain that deer solemnly walk across. They mourn the trees and grass, and the life it once held.

Sometimes you stain pages because the pain inside must be turned into art or more despair. The air in this room is too thick to breathe. I need to see the light but it never seems to come. Come with me? Come with me down a dark and winding path to places I shouldn’t go.

A tornado ripped through my house. It devastated my family. This freak of nature was no weather event. It was my own mother, as violent as any other natural disaster.