You’d think that it would be the day I lost my eyes but… Not really. It’s the most traumatic memory, for sure, but overall worst would be the day I lost hope.

It was a few days after I’d had the “surgery”, and I was crumpled on my cot, numb. Blood thrummed in my ears so it was all I could hear, along with my ragged breaths. My eyes kept floating from one side of the ceiling to the other, unable to focus.

While I lay there, more dead than alive, I remember thinking with sudden, startling clarity: Nobody will come for me. I’ll die here. I’ll die with nothing to my name other than the memory of MaMa’s rough fingers like fire on my skin.

Something inside me died that day. I still haven’t gotten it back.

[T3CH13N1C1@N posted at 12:57AM]