Forest Child

She is of fig tree limbs and feral heart, a wispy silhouette that breathes through yellowed eyes. She is a witness to the golden drops of sun the forest ceiling filters, billowy hands outstretched to savour the breaking of dawn.

But, with her head towards shards of light and her being among evergreens, she bathes not in warmth but in the woe of her aching heart. Maybe sleeping among thorned roses and fanged wolves had turned it into a thistle.

I once wondered how the sweetest things in life can be tainted and torn, choosing to believe that only beauty can be blemished by the poison of this world. My eyes, as butterflies swooped by, only saw tender spirits and gentle souls. My ears, as laughter erupted in bursts of bliss, only heard the yells of playing children. My lips, as fowls fed from their healthy mothers, only smiled at the words that came from content. And, when bullets are fired and cracks let loose, I saw only white get stained red.

But what happens when the rusty is broken or when the dirty is destroyed or when the tainted is torn? What happens when the guilty dies inside and when black disintegrates? What happens, then, to the feral forest child -- the one raised by nocturnals that rip throats for food, the one that has learnt to kill with her back turned, the one that is merciless because she is a survivor -- what happens when she crumbles and fall and when she is finally crushed by one more sly than her? 

With the weight of violets and timbers on her shoulder, she wants to fall. It is far easier to run than it is to shoulder her way through darkness, far easier to sleep under raven wings than it is climb up willows, far easier to live with a thistle heart than to tear it out of her guts.

Who could ever look at the one with blood stained hands and remember that her flesh can be cut and her blood spilled, too?

PHOTOS BY SHIAN LI CHIAM

MAY X

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