Death in a Foreigner’s Tongue
Prose by Isabella Melians
I. Él sana a los que tienen el corazón roto y venda sus heridas (Psalm 147: 3) Their locutions flit over my head, like a murder of crows fleeing a foggy sunrise in the east. Mother told me to smile and nod, to force puddles of sunlight into my gingerbread eyes. Monochrome people hover on tiled floors, fingers fumbling against sterling silver wrists. I study the way their fingernails catch on dull moissanite rings, handed to them by the papaya brushed remnants of their ancestors. I wonder if they were baptized in the murky water of chipped bathtubs. Father raised me to be a good Roman Catholic, to hold hands with the boy that smelled like gasoline during Communion, to hold back bile as I kissed him during the wedding. Fragmented light dips into concave chests, nestling against floral perfume. I peer at the wilted flowers sighing against stiff walls- asters, bluebells, and carnations- in a deadened glory that clings to life like ticks burrowed in a mangy dog. II. Mi carne y mi corazón pueden desfallecer, pero Dios es la fuerza de mi corazón y mi porción para siempre. (Psalm 73:26) Mascara smudges transform into abstract paintings on tear-stained cheeks, birthing a child to waltz across anguish-stricken skin. She leaps from freckle to freckle, wobbling on tippy-toes painted with matte aegean polish. I swipe my thumb across her face, watching her dissipate beneath my fingertip. Caskets of walnut wood conjugate in a silent vigil. Within my mind’s eye, I can clearly picture the dead conversing with each other in hushed whispers. “Did you believe their lies too?,” the elders would ask. Undecayed jaws sighed, “Yes, they told the same stories.” Phantom hands caressed my jaw, gliding beneath and tilting it upwards and towards firmaments of an unforgiving and disquieting god. Oh, how I covet to join Him. III. Jesús le dijo: “Yo soy la resurrección y la vida." (John 11:25-26) Hearts of sanguine blood strain against suffocating ribs; pomegranate veins strain against sweaty palms as they shove roses against brass handles. The clicking of heels decrescendos and crescendos as they deposit their flowers and scurry back. One steps, two steps, three steps, I am pulled forward by the roots of my hair. I stand before him and his stale air. Should I feel remorse? Should I pray for his day of heavenly resurrection? Reluctant hymns drip from chapped lips, the same lips that so greedily drank prayers from their mother’s teat. I am an intruder within these people, an imposter coated in vermillion lipstick. I kiss the top of his forehead, dusting brunette hair away from his pasty, rubbery skin. He still smells like gasoline
Isabella Melians is the vice president of her school's writing club, "The Writer's Circle." Her writing has been acknowledged by publications like Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, The Weight Journal, Same Faces Collective, Ice Lolly Review, and other local reviewers. In her free time, she enjoys playing the cello, watercolor painting, and fostering with a local pet rescue.