Piercing Silence

Our house was still the same way it has been after two months when I last left it. I stood at the gate for a moment. I needed a breather.

My mother welcomed me with a smile. I did not smile back. It was not the time for us to exchange our happiness. I still had to unpack the bad news I have been carrying since I left my dorm.

“Ma, I pierced my lips,” I told her guiltily while showing the month-old hole under my lips. It tore her heart when she learned that my rebellious dream had already come true. She gazed at it and said nothing.

The screaming sound of silence stopped me from saying my apology and explanation.

We just stared at each other waiting for the next word to break the quiet air.

Her tears fell when she finally asked me why I did it. “I just want to,” a defiant answer that must have stabbed her heart deeper.

That night continued with our wordless sobs.

I never forgot the tears she shed. They did not stop flowing in my mind until I laid my head down to sleep. The next days will be harder, I said to myself.

The next morning, I found the voodoo doll my mother and I had made together. I assumed the doll was already awake as the sun’s rays hit her through a little spot on the window. It made me wish that my mother could have just been like her. She never asked me why and never cried.

I had always been piercing pins into my voodoo doll and she never spoke a word to me. I never heard her agony. I haven’t seen her shed a tear. Even at that time when I burned her. Her melting velvet skin flowed like blood. But she never complained about it. I treated her like a slave to the angry feelings that stirred inside of me.

But that morning, I did not feel like torturing her. Looking at her, I felt that she had enough already. The absence of pins and a match contributed to her salvation. I just stared at her silently. It felt like the last night’s atmosphere.
“Why can’t she be just like you?” I asked my doll stupidly for I know she wouldn’t answer back.

I smiled and placed her back in the same spot. Everything’s gonna be all right, I told myself optimistically as I looked forward to a new day.

My mother would soon accept my latest disobedience like she did before.

I was alone at the breakfast table. My mother was not home. The sound of the utensils reminded of how the table looked like when we placed the new jeans she had bought for me from the market last summer. It was the only time when the sound of wares was not the noise in the kitchen but the music of our excited voices. I was so happy that day. I hurried to the mirror as I tried them on. I was so proud to wear them to school, as I was the only punk guy walking on the pathway. “My mother bought them for me,” I told everyone who asked me where I had gotten them.

But I don’t wear them anymore. I looked awkward wearing them. They are just lying in darkness inside my closet, waiting to be worn again.

I went outside for a smoke. I sat near the clothesline. I saw my favorite t-shirt hanging with my other self-printed stuffs. I printed it with the famous profanity, Puta. I was not sure how my mother felt when she saw it. I did not bother thinking about it. All I knew was that, it hung there clean. She had washed it.

I chucked my cigarette and noticed the worn out black nail polish on my fingers. “Where did she go?” I missed my mother to fix that nail polish. She’s the artist of my nails. It had been easy for her; the only color I asked her to put on them was black. She always did them well.

I could not find her. So I did my nails by myself.

When she came back, she saw how ugly my nails turned out because of my novice skills. She sat beside me, held my hand and applied acetone on them. I was glad. She cleared the mess on my nails. And as usual, she did them well.

I thought that night would last for a long time. But it ended when she arrived. Her touch reached my heart and stitched it fixed. Our smiles became needles that sew our relationship back to the way it used to be.

That moment felt so happy I wished it would never end. But it had to. I have to come back to Davao. My mother packed my bag for me. Everything was there. She never left anything out. Most especially, she never forgot to pack my beloved voodoo doll. She laid the doll on top of my clothes. Resting in the comfort she deserves.

I’ll fix my doll when I arrive, I told myself as I think of the stitches my mother and I did on her when we made her. The burn under her left arm was the only piece that was yet unfixed. I found a cloth to patch her up and stitched her tight. I did it like my mother’s stitching job. She looked better after my work was done.

Every morning when I wake up, I always see her beside my bag. She makes me remember that night when I had told my mother about my piercing. She gives me the same cold stare my mother gave me. She never failed to make me feel the silence we had that time.

I looked at my voodoo doll and told her, “I’ll pierce my ears.” She just stared at me like she always does. That seemed like an approval to me. So I did it, six pins. The pain would be worse when I get home, I told myself as I finished the last one.

My mother welcomed me as she always did. A disgusted expression was on her face when she saw my pin-cushioned ear. But things worked out like they usually did. The wounds on my ears healed fast. And as they did, my mother accompanied me to mall to buy myself a new set of earrings. We bought black round ones. It was my choice. And she agreed with it.

I transferred the pins from my ears to my voodoo doll. She looked awful with them on. So I just threw them away.

She doesn’t deserve any more piercing on her. I have learned through her silence that she also needs love. A love equal to the love she had always shown me.

-Darylle Rubino-