The songs hiding under his eyes

There was once a boy. And there was once a darkness. A darkness the boy remembered well.

He remembered how it hid itself neatly in the cracks of the wall, and kept its head tucked under the window sill. He remembered waking to the morning sunrise and hearing the strangle of their moans until they became whispers. He remembered learning that while light cannot travel around corners, it is in the corners that the darkness breathes; where it is the strongest. But above all else, he remembered the words they spoke. Every night, even while he slept, they sang songs of half-promise and of half-threat.

But there was also once a voice. A voice the boy remembered well.

He remembered how it waited patiently in the cheeks of his mother, and how it radiated through her skin and warmed her smile. He remembered hearing it being powered by something deep within her body, and how it resonated with a strength and a fragility. He remembered learning how it could speak, not only through words, but also through a touch; through a holding of hands. But above all else, he remembered one song it sang. Every night, before he fell asleep, it would whisper, in half-song, half-caress:

Bring back,
bring back,
bring back my bonnie to me.
To me.

Bring back,
bring back,
oh, bring back my bonnie to me.

For a long time, this voice and its song would wake the boy to a warmth that gave a smile to his face.

But things are different now. And things are still the same.

Every night, before the boy falls asleep, he can still hear the darkness, and he can still hear the voice. The only difference now is that the lullabye that once sang like a song, has now begun to sing like a lie.

And, going unnoticed to the boy, in the place where his lowest ribs connect to form a cage, beneath the area centre of his chest, at the very bottom left of his heart, something hard, and something dark, has began to form there. And, from a view taken from the inside of his heart, what once appeared like a red and healthy curve of a muscle, has slowly taken up a strange semblance to one of the corners of the boy's bedroom.