March 2025: Trigger Warning – Kylie Sardinha
Trigger Warning
I remember all too well the day I knocked — and the devil answered.
Now, trapped somewhere between life and death, I wait.
Fifty-four days. A prisoner of my own mind.
I can’t move. I can’t speak. But I feel and hear everything.
My mother’s fingers are wrapped tightly around mine. I imagine her cardigan hanging loosely around her weakening frame, her curls, the ones I envied — I feel them as they escape her bun while resting her head to my chest.
Then there’s my father; his grip is brief but firm, more for a check-in than for comfort.
His broad shoulders must be weary. With every visit his breath grows heavier.
My brother Mark can never hide his arrival. Always known for his noisy entrances, he reeks of cigarette smoke and spearmint gum. Constantly shifting in the chair, knee bouncing, filling the silence with nervous chatter.
Doctors and nurses come and go, their words to my family are carefully measured, always balancing hope and reality.
After each visit, my family continue to send their prayers into the void, assuring themselves, that I am resting, that I am healing.
And then, there is you.
I cannot see you; I don’t need to. I know you are immaculate, your suit crisp, your dark hair precisely styled, your practiced expression carved in sorrow.
Yours is the softest voice of them all.
Each word drenched in pain, a masterclass in grief.
As you brush your fingers through my hair, I hear the lump form in your throat as you speak of love, regret, and everything that we have left undone.
You lean in, you kiss my cheek, and that’s when I smell it. That cologne, it’s new. Do you think vanilla and patchouli can cover the stench of what you did?
I scream, but no one hears. I cry, but the tears belong to me alone. Both proof that I’m still alive.
Right now, you are the only thing keeping me tethered to life.
It’s your fear, the fear that only I can sense. It’s in how your breath hitches, how your hand lingers just a moment too long, daring to test if I can move.
For now, I may not be able to recoil from your touch, but I can promise you I’m growing stronger, that this darkness is not my friend, my captor, nor my home.
When my eyes open, I won’t scream. I won’t cry.
Kylie Sardinha
Right Left Write’s March prompt was Dark & Stormy Night.
Find out more about Right Left Write at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s March prompt was Dark & Stormy Night.