by Angelisa Miranda, 2022
In the 1990s, there was a popular tune on the radio. A Tiffany Darwish sound recycled, reduced, and reused for an up-and-coming teenage artist named Amy. Amidst “whispers in the dark” and a mission to “take on the whole wide world”, Amy wondered what her own words might sound like put to music. How might they taste in her officially licensed mouth?
Before those answers could be discovered, her voice took a detour into marriage. She committed her youth to a MeTooMaker who pulled her out of the spotlight for 2 decades and gave her the beautiful family that she never wanted.
later
At 42, Amy was divorced. A mother. The muse and mistress of a 20-something photographer, and she was making good money as a professional masseuse and caretaker.
Twice a week, she worked at a women’s rehab with patients who suffered from psychosis and cross addiction. The gig paid, but night shifts were awful. The clinic was short-staffed and 2 a.m. often left her with nothing but a broken tv set and a demented soundtrack of suffering and confusion to keep her mind occupied.
On certain nights, a guitar hung near an activity cabinet in the hallway. If the patients were calm, Amy might take it down and strum it quietly, imagining herself in a younger body, in a different time. She reached for it as she sometimes did but stopped short. She noticed a small, eye level window above the doorknob of room 105.
On either side of the windowpane was the image of a woman. “Is that my face?” She thought.
There was no sound.
Amy walked into the room, leaving her younger self in the hall. She saw a short haired young girl. Or was she a woman? Darkness made it hard to tell. closer, face to face, toes kissing, Amy reached out. Touching skin would show her the truth.
Amy grasped the woman’s face with both hands. They were in the shadows, but they were together, a psychic superhighway between them. Intuition illuminated a profound, debilitating fear. The feeling of shivering. Of ugliness. Of shame. Of eyes drifting away. Of demons taking hold.
But strength was with them too.
A rawness escaped her.
“Look me in the eye.”
“The Monster you see in this room is in your mind.It is not real; it is symbolic of your abuse. You have to go up to it, and confront it, and say,’Do you know who I am? I am a child of the most high God.’ It is time to grow up and be a woman now”
Her hands released. Dawn had come in and there was warmth.
She left with the taste of water in her throat.
Angelisa Miranda 