Voiceless

Everyone in my house walks around with springtrap lips, ready to throw in a word wherever we aren’t wanted. We all expect each other’s perfect attention to our every word, but only hear what we wish to. Forgoing attention to voice and instead focusing on the snap snap pop of lips bobbing together and apart like window shutters. They say their silly proverb: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, like you cannot have one evil without another. Tell my family, who don’t hear the evil that their own mouths speak, that if they do not hear evil then no one must be speaking it. When hurtful words are spoken we simply say our lips must speak without us, for only spiritless lips could act against a spiritual being. But we all have lips that lie differently.

My mother, with lips like bruised plums, whispers love in my ear that she claims to be true. My mother, with warm windy breath, sighs contentedly into my shirt with a warm summer breeze. My mother has no traditional evils. She is unconditional. She says everything will be fine, when we both know that life is relentless. She is full of optimistic dishonesty. Her lips are loose and welcoming, a distant sunrise on a muddy horizon. She is my security. Her lips lie with impossible hopefulness.

My dad’s lips are witty and quick, his words slip cunningly into this world like foxes. Each step he walks is filled with purpose, be it clear to others or not. His thoughts stay confined in his head for the most part, but some genius trickles through that cannot be contained. I am irrationally entertained by his occasional antics. Although he is a dad before he is a father, he is an ergomaniac before he is my own blood. I show my love for him in the way his lips show his knowledge, only when it becomes too strong to contain within myself. I do not say much. His lips lie about his capacity for genius.

My brother is unyielding, with a fiery tongue but an extinguishing mind. He is surprisingly thoughtful in his writing. He is incredibly focused in his mind. But his lips are heavy, and they act without him. They are an unwanted filter that throws away philosophy for comedy. My brother is brilliantly sympathetic, but with a mouth that renounces empathy. His thoughts are calm and balanced, but his voice is angry and confused. His lips lie for him, while his thoughts scream truthfulness. He is like a wounded animal twisting in his own skin that is hopeful for rescue. But deep down he knows that that no one can rescue his from his own body. His lips lie about his reality.

Me? I have lying lips too. They don’t lie sweetly like my mother’s, or constricting like my father’s. Nothing like my contradicting brother’s. My mind is filled with evils and dishonest omens of a darker future or an empty universe. My mind is corrupt and impenetrable, filled with the prophecies of the lying people around me. I am just as dishonest, but my lips do not speak. My lips are springtrap tight, poised for battle, but they do not speak. They talk and talk and talk and talk, and they never say anything at all. I am a liar and a cheater and I am just as guilty as the lowest scum, but I have still never spoken. I am sinful and I am silent. I am voiceless