It's Still Life

10 of 27 — The Truth Told Too Late

She remembers the lime-green hydrangea wallpaper, metallic flecks catching the light like something that failed to be beautiful, and the mirror above the sink—it’s too high for her body, but just right for her face.

Felreil sits on the bottom step, still as guilt, watching the air thicken before it hits.

He sees it land—the sentence pitched like a dish across a table: You are the stupidest girl on God’s good earth—and even now, decades later, the copper taste of it returns to her tongue uninvited.

She does not cry, not then, not after—she just washes her hands and counts the seconds between silence and obedience.

Felreil rises only when she looks at herself and does not ask Why?—because that’s where Quillbone lodges: in the questions swallowed before they form.

The girl will grow, will rise, will become, but she will carry the sound of that sentence like a coin tucked under her tongue, warm and unwanted.

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “pitch”.  Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.