Of Sins and Sanity

Before the Burning There is a photograph somewhere in my father's study of a little girl in a yellow dress She is laughing Her hands are sticky with mango Her father is laughing too That little girl does not yet know that the man holding her built his house on the bones of other people's children She does not know that the gold around her wrist was paid for in silence That the sampaguita in her hair grew in soil soaked with someone else's grief She still believes the world is soft She still believes love is something you are born into and not something you have to bleed for I am writing this so you understand Before the fall Before the boy with the loud voice and the gentle hands Before the bus ride that smelled of diesel and rain and goodbye Before I learned that the truth is a kind of knife you have to be willing to hold by the blade I was that little girl in the yellow dress And then one night I was not One night I walked past my father's office and I heard the rustle of money and the soft cruel laugh of a man I thought I knew And the world tilted And it never tilted back What follows is not a confession It is not a love story although there is love in it It is not a political thriller although there is a country bleeding in the background of every page It is the quiet record of a girl who learned how to breathe again Who learned that some last names are cages And some boys are not saviors but mirrors And some truths are heavy enough to break a dynasty If you are reading this Then I survived That is the only spoiler I will give you Everything else You will have to feel for yourself — Ellie