playing god. sing siblings.

[✨ zozo.]

b e l l e ;

I'm living with the devil.

He exists inside my brothers and makes them do horrible, unspeakable things. He slides down my throat and forces up the contents of my stomach at every thought of them and their wicked, disgusting, repugnant actions. Porcelain and bleach, our bathroom tiles are cool against my feverish skin, I think he's in me too.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs. Instead I lie awake in the dark, hear the faint sound of the back door opening and closing, cover my mouth and sob into the darkness. I think I haven't said a word in three days and Mom and Dad don't care enough to notice. Perhaps they like the silence.

I don't. It carves me up inside.

But I don't know how to speak about what I saw them doing without damning them - hell, maybe they've damned themselves. I hate what they've done and I hate what they're doing, vertigo, I stand on my moral high ground and they dig deeper and deeper into the dirt. It's dizzying up here, I fall - porcelain bowls, I'm throwing up in the bathroom sink again.

I don't hate them. I could never hate my brothers, not even Andy. I knew he had a darkness in him but I still stayed, clung to his hand when I was small, pulled Vati up when I'd stopped crying over things that didn't matter. I love my brothers and I'd die before I shut them out but their secrets are my secrets and they're killing me slowly, I wonder if they even care. Vati might. Andy wouldn't.

I still sit with them at breakfast, eyes digging for details. Dirt underneath fingernails or tired eyes - nothing. Maybe I dreamed up the whole thing. Maybe the devil's in me instead and he's turning me against my own blood and kin. I inhale, day four of no words and I'm sick of staying silent.

"You're disgusting," I tremble, terrified of the sound of my own voice. "Both of you."

I can't look at them, mirror-images of each other. I think I'm scared I'll see myself in their eyes.

"I know what you're doing and..."

My insides lurch, acid bile in the back of my throat, I might vomit before I can finish. Fingers curl around my spoon and I'm glaring at my half eaten breakfast - as if orange juice could drown out what I'd seen.

 I kind of wish it could drown me instead.

"Why?"

The dead can't talk, but I can.

this is the last second chance
i'll point you to the mirror
without a hint of regret
i'll hold you to it

[ghosty]

i give you all a boy could give youVD

I always love some broken family;  no one ever cares to see some dug up dirt lyin' below their dead's gravestones if the living is fucked up enough. They're always my favourite type to hit.  Not that Vati knows that. He's only there for the damn thrill of it, hopin' for some kind of treasure trove when he's only there to carry the shovel. 

Wonder always did miracles, make no mistake. 

Creeping out of backdoors, oiled hinges still too loud at midnight for secrecy; yet, questions are kept on the down low. Nobody asks what they don't wanna know, nobody tells what they ain't asked for. Except Vati, spreadin' all that bullshit in his little book at whatever opportunity that he gets.

Better that then our little secret. Mom knows nothin' she needs to worry about, just likes the little extra money comin' in. What a wonderful wage diggin' graves does, white lie slipped into truthful remarks. Fresh air at night time helps me sleep; black lie, darker than the sky when we darting around metal gates, stone slabs and porcelain flowerpots.

Lies ain't so bad, like anything, only in moderation like Mom used to say. Once in hard candies and now in the truth. Funny how things move on, and others stay the same: sugarcoating still works when candies are replaced with little lies. 

Sugar always helps on the way down.

Breakfast table-top covered in food, like it always was. Mornin's after the night before, tired lines hidden away as much as possible, famished hunger under well practised control.  Nothin' out of the ordinary, particularly in front of Belle. 

Her eyes scan; she always had a better eye for detail than I ever did. Secrets burn on the tip of my tongue, like they always did, threatenin' to slip out at any moment.

Words slip out of the silence and I swear it was my voice filling the air but -- trembled words like my fingers around golden bracelets from the dirt;

"You're disgusting. Both of you." Panic scatters my thoughts, shattering like porcelain flowerpots against a shovel; soil tumbles like water from a pitcher onto the ground. Peeked glances between the pair of us; the look of the pray to their natural predator. Like I'm the monster among men.

But this is my sister, sweet little Belle. "I know what you're doing and --," the pause like a knife slowly turning in the wound; excruciating pain and a counter slipping down to zero. I don't want to hear the last word anymore. Observing eyes glance down to a plate.

She can't look at me. I don't blame her. "Why?" The silence is screaming at me to speak and yet I'm buried alive. The truth burns more now that the sugar is stripped off. Hard old truth. Hard candies aren't as nice when they're bitter and made of salt.

"Belle, I-- I know I'm a monster. You weren't meant to know. " And yet, she does. A whole lot of good secrecy does. Guilt, that gut wrenching pull driving my body lower in the seat: Vati always spoke of Hell. Some kind of place where those who are wicked go to.

It’s where I’m headed, dug all the way down with the shovel propped up by the back door. I’d deserve it. “Hate me for it, I won’t blame you. Vati only tagged along for the ride. It’s me you should hate. You probably already knew that, huh?”

She always was the smart one of the three of us. An’ I’m the monster that she should cower from.

ANDORRA SING