05/10/2025
| Flap of my Wings, Ruptures from Her Sin
Like any flower from a garden, its curator lingers (the one that keeps life afloat), and my mother likes all her plants placed where they are. The orchids must be tied up in a branch (not too tight, not too loose), the snake plant must line up to welcome the lonely entrance, and the lawn must be painted green and inviting by carabao grass. She talks to her plants every day while watering them, collecting the lifeless leaves, and leaving them to rot in a pit. (She likes to dig something and bury what she used to keep).
And I like that for her. She cradles her flowers like her own children, even sings to them under the dim of twilight, and I like that for her. She'll get upset when a stem breaks down from her crotons and mourn over the damage. And I like that for her.
Anything that visits her garden will live full of life. Her garden, like the number of palettes there is in a hibiscus— colorful. But among those who visit her garden were a troupe of insects, she would be happy to see a butterfly that is conventionally pleasing, but she doesn't like to keep them; they are too beautiful to be kept away from the rest of the world (she knew that if it is too beautiful it is not hers). Moths too visit most often, but she doesn't like them either. She dislikes uncertainty flapping in strangeness (she prefers something she can orchestrate the details for it keeps her secure). My mother, out of all keepers, was in search of something, something that she could finally call her own. She likes the lawn wide and green because dragonflies visit every afternoon. And I like that for her.
For once in her life, she came to choose one thing she would keep; she knew her own. I asked her why she likes dragonflies, she said she likes it when their wings are broken— they don't die easily (and my back suddenly aches). I thought she collected their wings because they looked strong and framed against the wind, and their strength over time is endearing, but she only said she likes to collect their hopes from being alive (like the hope of her life was taken away from her). But still, I like that for her. For once, she knew what she wanted to keep (for herself, she knew wouldn’t cause her any regret).
Each time her tongue stretches from rage, and waters her lawn, I'll get to count how many dragonflies fell to the ground (the weight of her words are enough for my knees to meet the earth and stare at it in disbelief), sometimes just enough for a shoulder to lie low, but sometimes it causes more than the weight of the heart, but worth to one's existence. But among any other humans, my mother is a woman; she was born to live this life, only for it to be robbed by someone of her choice. And like any other flower that bloomed in her garden, there was someone who others might call the luckiest bud, because that flower bloomed from her womb. But was she lucky to grow a thing inside her when it tore her sanity apart and scratched her flesh from the inside? And was she lucky enough to have that being, reminded of who she once was, and who she ought to become? She was put in a constant reminder of the life she could have had. And calling it a charm (worse, a gift) for her is downright dehumanizing. She was peeled alive from the life she was meant to enjoy; now, it's nowhere near.
From the gentleness of her skin and the palms that hold so much destiny, she doesn't know where they have gone (not until the bud from her womb grows exactly like her). And the blood, the blood that used to roam her stomach, now levitates to her eyes, each time she looks straight to mine (the moment she is about to collect a piece of my wings displays the gaze of her motherly love). And I'll get to memorize her sight each time her sin tickles her hair, and is enraged by the thought of it. It's bothersome to her, but a chance for me to draw her eyes from memory (no one stares too long at the mistake they've made). She has these pairs of eyes that desire beauty, but when she gets reminded of the faults she made, her eyes become the eyes of empty pitch black, of veins from aging, of resentment, of disdain, and of regret. But I am hopeful to see love lingering at the back (I knew there was love each time she held my wings before she ripped them apart).
Her love is woven from pain, and I knew that my existence was one of them. And I will have to tiptoe my breath away and make no mistake when she is around, so she won't remember the most sinful thing she already did. Her life was stolen from her because she was capable of giving another human a life. (So I'll understand why she loves to keep my wings torn from the care of her hands because it was supposedly her life— unfortunately imposed on me.) I'll embrace the rage when it gives her a little relic of her own. Because if the only thing she likes in this world is keeping the wings of a fractured dragonfly and witnessing how they crawl to reach more from the skies (I love that she likes me for that very least), then that is the most fulfilling thing I could do for stealing away her life.
I don't know what exactly makes her happy, but at least if my wings can, then I'll give it (back) to her.
And my confession is knowing what's wrong with me, I know exactly what I am (what I am to her), and why I was called a sinner before even knowing how to live. It's not just how my wings flap, how I desire the gaze from her love, or yearn for a bedtime story, and silently ask for her hum of lullabies, or how I resented my uneven eyes, but it was nothing but my mere existence. I knew I was a gravely committed sin among the seven deadly ones because what I was made of are the sins the church condemns: I have stolen away the life of my own mother, only for her to witness her tragedy twice.
Because each time I flap my wings, memories of what could have been (her life) rupture from her sins.
Prose | Althea Geaga
Illustration | Aulo Gil Santos
