tainted memories.

When words hang heavy in the air and trust feels like an empty house, I often find myself sitting back wondering why even with wings we cannot defy gravity.

By the stroke of midnight, I opened my mouth in the kitchen that silenced me and cued the harmony of a catastrophic orchestra.

***

Growing up, I have been the soft-spoken girl. I didn't like confrontations nor arguments of any sorts. So I liked to appease people a lot because it usually meant that we would have our peace and quiet back sooner than later.

I was part of the first-generation children of immigrant parents. Consequently, my siblings and I were born and raised with different cultural values than our parents. As children, we agreed that these values never posed as tension to strain our relationships with them.

As I grew older into my adolescence years I started to shape my own sense of individuality and honed my own set of values. A lot of the times my newfound values clashed with my parents and I was often met with a very lengthy lecture of "the right way of thinking." My foundation at the beginning hasn't been anchored so I often became submissive and surrendered my position to them.

In my young adult years, the tension expanded across many topics and grew in intensity. At one point, literally every breath that we took became fuel for a fire that was already ignited by the sheer presence of one another. I felt like we were all walking time-bombs waiting to explode as soon as we faced each other. I remember having to meticulously plan how to articulate my next set of thoughts because if I didn't, someone would blow and set the rest of us off.

And that's exactly what happened that night when I opened my mouth in the kitchen that silenced me. I cued the harmony of a catastrophic orchestra. Time-bombs went off one by one as I watched us fall apart.