Hackers: The Shattered Life of a Child

by Henry Ling

 

A boy sits staring into the ominous void ahead,

A rapping noise on the window,

His mother's face pressed against the glass.

A murmur in his imagination,

A zombie, features distorted with pain and suffering,

His arm extends as a frog's tongue,

A cerulean wound opened up under his eye,

An azure road slowly snaked down his cheek.

 

Beyond the window of dreams, a plea for help.

Eyes like marbles fixated on mother,

An insect on her back,

A knife erected from a gloved hand,

Slicing her soft flesh as if it were paper.

Watching as a vermillion pool appeared on her slender neck.

Watching as a hyena cackles over her limp corpse.

 

He blinked and it was gone the dark image had gone,

A rat scuttled across the ghost town,

A crow swooped over the rooftop,

His eyes as a tube of toothpaste,

Squeezing ultra marine drops.

His cold fingers clenched round the black hilt of

A razor.

Its jagged teeth ran down his dark forearm,

As tears swam across his ebony cheeks.

 

The zigzag blade was halted,

A wrist caught in its aggressive jaws,

His mother, eyes flickering, a ghost before him-

"Move on son"

The three words bounced over the walls like a squash ball.

An infinite moment the boy paused.

 

The boys eyes squinted into the abyss,

A sticky sensation clinging to his arm,

He watched a crimson lake drip from his fingertips,

Yet his arm was as bare as a prison cell,

Turning to the person looming over him,

He saw ... His father, his bushy beard and spongy hair.

 

His dark head closely shaven lay limp upon is bed,

His eyes, of hazel, looked out into the night,

His heart a prison of hate and regret,

His mind screaming raw emotions into the world,

His eyelids blinds closing for the night,

The words still ricochet around the room,

But his slender hands are to slow too grasp them tight.