A.N.: While I am lacking a funny mood to write Road Kill with, I ponder about love and hate. This will be a series of prose dealing with love and hate personified through the years of a child, youth, and eventually an adult. I'll update when I can.

A Voiceless Lullaby

You first spotted her in your mother’s cheeks. Curious, you reached out your small fingers to feel, and that was the first time you smiled. Whoever gave your mother this flushed, warm feeling must have been a fairy, you realized later, or maybe it was only a dream. You saw her often, and it shamed you to think you’d rather her hold you than your mother. She appeared and reappeared frequently in your mother’s chalky laugh and frail arms, and in her words too. Sometimes it got you confused if she was the same person as your mother, but she couldn’t be. Where cardboard stars swirled above your head because your parents were too poor to afford real plastic mobiles, her voice guided you to asleep in voiceless lullabies. She was always around you, ready to save you from the dark or the merciless. Your mother however wasn’t. That’s why she couldn’t be your mother. She couldn’t be.

She kissed your head when your mother forgot. She was your queen when your mother lost her crown. She fed you hope when your mother could only spoon you excuses. You wouldn’t have grown up if she hadn’t been there to protect you.

It took your four more years to learn her name. Silky on your tongue and desperate on your lips, she smirked as you learned it.

Love.

It was only the beginning though. She had so much more to teach you, and there would one day be a time when you didn’t care anymore. In fact, you’d fight her with every power you could come across.

But that concept didn’t exist to you yet. You didn’t know him. You only needed her to suffice now.

Remember? You’re still a child and that gives you the power to be as happy as you want. You’re naive, darling. So very naive. I think that what she was most amused about you.