day by day, we count our way to zero by Andrea Huang (16, Taiwan)

my brain is a slaughterhouse, home of a monomaniac serial killer 
and i am made of a destiny to sing elegies for the souls of words lost within
its crevices. i tally the deceased with a weighing scale-- 
the days left that my name can still be tolerably defined as “human”. 

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my head weighs lighter now; my mother says i don’t trip anymore. 
says she’s proud of me for finally acknowledging her in finding tranquility. 
says she’s glad she sold her vehement daughter for a doll. 

i remember the day she abdicated my guardianship over my mind to the reaper. the
crescent moon on her face has never smelled so syrupy it sliced through the striations of
my heart and left the pieces putrefying into a cavity behind my ribs. 

my four limbs are bound by shackles in a glass cube in the theatre beneath my skin.
the same playscript etches in my tongue--its words unconsciously percolate through
my screams. each night as i mouth, the reaper treads past the boundless cemetery
of my brain, countless dusks fade as i waste myself witnessing the rusted scythe
harvest my emotions, flicking up the cadavers with unfathomable rancour. 

i sign peace treaties with myself to prevent any other bullet of thought from firing through sutured walls while the reaper executes traitors like water eroding sand castles. 
coerced elegies sound no different from white noise.