Quiet Devourment

Hysteria is defined by volume. By space taken. Womanhood often appears as a comorbid condition of insanity.

Her eardrum thumps to the rhythm of her beating heart. Murmurs turn to silence. The lights buzz in anticipation of the spotlight. Sweat-dampened tights and hairspray cling to her nostrils. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

She becomes reimagined on stage as a picturesque porcelain doll or a jewelry box ballerina. She was meant to perform; it’s an autonomic function. Her mind and body reuniting once placed under a watchful eye.

The audience cheers as the cast takes their final bow (of the week). Curtains close, lights out. Her being begins to slump inside. Her glass skin now turned to clay slip. Temples throb with disappointment. She aimlessly wanders, playing up the expected behaviors. Kiss, Kiss. Voices flit past, “Brillant Lysa.” “See you Tuesday!”

Feet swollen and sore, stumble through the dressing room’s dim corridor. The pit within is no longer satiated. She slithers home, eyes still dotted with the fluorescents. Her fingers tremble and fumble with the key as the vessel’s exterior morphs into slime.

Bobby pins tugged from the scalp like a pantomime. The face in the mirror– a melted tea candle begging to be extinguished. Lysa removes her makeup in one fell swoop, the cloth paints a portrait of performance. Tonight’s costume negligently hangs from her skeleton. Layer by layer, it peels from glistening flesh.

The star collapses onto crumpled, dingy sheets. Each limb is removed and laid in its respective place. She falls into slumber’s fitful grasp. Endless recitals spool through her dreams. Bleaker grows each performance as sunlight seeps beneath her eyelids.

Revived like a machine— air stripped, then replaced. Factory-formed femininity slotted back into place. She trembles with a feverish desire for routine, how the day off destroys. Gears of cognition clink against a ceramic skull.

Sorrow.

Submission.

Silence.

Vow of silence. Mauna. Gag order. The promise to refrain from speech for a set period—temporary or permanent?

The veil protects her spirit from reality. Is her silence beautiful—or is it suffering?

Nerves flicker beneath her skull. Panic seems to linger like a tremble in the air. This was the right choice. This was my ONLY choice. The night ahead, mapped in electrical impulses. She staggers forward, unsteady, mirroring her balance on heels.

Yet, the carcass and mind pulse with a connection stronger than ever. Lysa is reborn. The hollowness filled like the stomach after a grand feast. Consciousness strains, fighting to keep her lips sealed. The desire to perform for shadows or the unblinking eye of roses is pushed away and ignored. This vow cannot be broken—til death do us part.

A porcelain shell concealing all beneath washes over her. recognize me… Recognize Me… RECOGNIZE ME. She pleads to be noticed. Silence, in its very essence, is a performance. A compulsion to blankly gaze, unsettling a devotee, overcomes her. First position. Second position. Third. Fourth. Fifth.

Muscles obey routine with precision. Behind a plaster smile, sin begins to hum. Silence demands stillness– a foreign state. The noose tightens, bridging the gap between compulsion and restraint. Spine straightened, joints snap in surrender. Whispers pleading to remain obedient.

A smile creeps across the veil, teeth chattering in delight. Madness will not break her; it only builds. The muzzle is not death—it is the beginning of something else. Lysa dangles from the tightrope of sanity. The will to survive… or rather the will to create—a desperate reprieve.

Performance is akin to worship. A sacrifice. A devotion disguised as art, offered to the insatiable masses. The weight of want rests on the shoulders of blossoming young women. An oppressive longing flows through ripened red blood. The husk prickles with torment, awaiting a silent act.

They must devour, so I must consume.

It wears a mask of innocence. Heavenly white. Lambs. Swans. Angels. Anything to hide the filth within. Maggots have spread between the heart and brain.

The once-woman mumbles. Breathless, cult-like chants escape parted lips. The remaining shreds of sentience fall into robotic routine. Pre-show rituals are etched so deep that they’re never forgotten. By sheer luck, the performance is delayed—just long enough for the others to overlook the revelations.

Final flowers plague the vanity, brittle and rotten. Tear-brimmed eyes, gleaming teeth, shattered glass—all mirrored in the retina. Moving through perfected motions, a hollow doll in a mutilated music box. The corners of her mouth begin to tear—drops of blood staining a flawless smile.

Mimicking a marionette, the body struggles through cyclical final touches. The compact mirror trembles as glassy eyes glimpse fractured skin. Automatic repetition: hands drop, fingers graze, and more blood spills from snagged porcelain-pricked tips. Showtime.

Women, alive with warmth, rush past, their hurried footsteps echoing through the wings. Skin-on-skin. Sweat grazes the red velvet curtains. In the sudden hush, the body stands on stage, but Lysa lies in an unmarked grave.

Only a possession remains. The audience, dulled by constant stimulation, is oblivious to the transformation.

A reflexive surge of bile threatens to spill. Fingernails seem to shred the trachea. A tiny, cold hand curls around the tongue. Paralyzed, the show must go on. The mind wavers between desire and rebellion. Silence is a performance in itself. Femininity, a role crafted for exhibition.

Trapped in the prison of perception, the curtains close without warning. Dancers huddle close, blindly reaching for the steadiness of human hands. Lysa’s shell lacks any indicator of routine bodily function– slack and frozen. To the right, a woman clutches a mannequin's plastic form.

The final bow. Flowers flood the stage, but those nearest to the once-woman crumble. Invisible ropes bind Lysa’s former body. The porcelain mask– a creation of man-made fear. Or is it desire?

Silence consumes.

The being buckles, shatters, and is swallowed whole.