Empresssissiofaustria - Empress Sissi Of Austria

It was not always easy, most of the time, it felt like peeling skin and reopening healing wounds. Most of the time, the stub of the missing limb would ache, as though another one would sprout at any second and pull the trigger over your head.

Some nights, you would wake up in cold sweat and start crying at the unbearable pain of twisting knives inside your ribs and an invisible force pushing at your sternum. Some nights, you would wish for Death to claim you already. 

You would be sitting in traffic amongst the crowd, staring out the window and enjoying the scenery then sudden loneliness would swarm you like a war troop, trampling you till you mingle with the soil. 

You will be thinking of eyes, nose, lips, entangled fingers and limbs like bullets spinning in the barrel of your mind till they hit the target. 

Bullseye; can’t miss with a revolver mind.

You cover your face, blocking the bleeding thoughts from spilling on the streets’ pavement. You drag the body everywhere as you send the emails, you clean the crime scene after every workday, you make up alibis for the sleepless nights and overflowing prescriptions. 

Breathe through your nose, lie through your teeth, only cry at funerals, behind closed doors and suffocating pillows. 

You embrace and hold hands, refusing to think of how it wrong it feels. You try not to think about the shape that’s molded over yours, not to think of the weight every smile bears on your face now that they’re gone. 

You want to apologize to those standing by your side. You want to tell them to wait a little longer, unsure how long that would take, unsure whether there is such a time to come.

You get up on the wrong side of the bed, theirs. Somedays, you make the coffee and add milk to it, like they used to like it. Sometimes, you eat the overly sweet desserts that they used to crave so much. 

You buy groceries and throw out the trash, you cook the meals and wash the dishes. You go to work and meet the people. You live with a ticking bomb in your core that resets every few years. You live with the constant haunting presence of a ghost in your blind spot. 

The pretense has become easier, you could almost believe in this illusion of peace. You could almost believe that the freefall would land you in their arms again. 

You look at the mirror and try to confess, you hang your head, ready for your sentence. You put your frail hands in front of you and think of how they have managed to strangle every beautiful moment. 

You practise your smiles, focus your eyes and try to hold the sputtering light in them for a few hours, just long enough to fool the passer byes. 

You twist and turn honeyed words around your tongue and pour them into eager ears. You bleed on paper for the starving beaks, put yourself on the altar and offer yourself as the scapegoat. 

You watch as they dine over your body, compliment the tenderness of the meat. Watch as they wipe their lips in satisfaction and ask for seconds. 

I can almost taste spring in this! they say, as they relish in the juice of your throbbing heart, awaiting evergreen happiness after endless misery. 

And as they savor every parcel of your being, you lay there and pray that they eat away at the flooding spring of love that won’t stop oozing from you in generous gushes, draining you like a slaughtered sheep till you stop wiggling and struggling to grab for an unreachable hand. 

And as you painstakingly stagger back up, drag your feet and protruding insides through the fields, you try and feel for the release and absence of the heavy curse named after a fantasized emotion. Every time, you trudge with dangling pockets full of hefty love that you will serve on silver platters for ravenous mouths.

And as you stumble on the bones of your predecessors, you clutch onto the featherlight belief that a home awaits your return from the battlefield, 

you cradle the hope that this time, you can grab onto their face without it turning into foam. You run your hands through their hair without it turning into sharp blades. 

You cling onto their arms without them crumbling into clods. 

You hang in the deep lake of their eyes without drowning. 

You latch onto their mouth without worry of snatching the very last breath out of their lungs.

And as you finally dare to whisper their name, you won’t be stricken by deafening silence.

And as you finally lean into the firm presence of their existence, you won’t turn into flames.

And as you finally pour all the love into its designed recipient, you will drink to your heart’s content and cease being the one feasted upon.

the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

Say it's good for the narrative and move on

oh no, I'm in my silly saddies