Imperfection

By Christine Yang of 10-Optimism

Illustration by Ana Lim

Orchid

You were simply the child product of intangible beauty; an exact replica of what impeccability would look like on such being. Just like its womb bleeding in vermillion honey, your chamfered wings of miraculous white were draped in incarnadine cloth, glorifying your physique. Your palms seemed so aligned to seraphic destiny, just inexplicably exact as the womb’s leaves - intricate and written in constellation sketches.

Yet behind those perfections were utter self-indulgence.

You kept bargaining. Bargaining for an exchange from debts long forgiven and forgotten. Bargaining for a sense of delusion, a sense of material in the afterlife. You were heavily bargaining as if your wings were a beggar’s cloth for warmth.

Beloved, you were rotting in hatred.

But as the bargains kept continuing, other angels witnessed your intent and malice slowly seeping through.

And there you were banished, beloved.

Red Dahlia

Although your lack of saliency was exhausting, your checkered actions were oddly and enticingly mysterious. My thoughts of you were quite unreasonably exaggerated, however, for I felt bittersweet slander in the coldly slithering presence you would manifest so subtly. A womb so subtly adored with sprouting blood-speckled dew could never be compared to your obscurity; however, you were just so greatly and utterly cynical behind angelic perspectives that it felt betraying.

Your wings were tattered, seemingly as if they were made with bent copper-like strings molded irregularly. For the first time did I see a celestial being so heavily wounded with such an emotionless gaze.

Days after, they told me you wanted to escape the place without being charged with thievery.

Chrysanthemum

It is quite idiosyncratic really, how everything was destined to be in completion, only to internally rot into beings with robbed wings and heavily bruised scapulas. It is truly a shame how they were both victims of attempt and malicious intent.

Moaning and grieving resonate across the pillars of the earth as both vanished. From chamfered and seraphically designed beings did they alter into the evanescence of a fantastical dream - white mist. All that was present were the heavenly hearts granted to them, prominently disguised as earthly wombs of alluring flowers.

Then do I realize how their flawed attempts caused excruciating memories, yet they’ve brought beautiful remnants - wombs.

There do I wonder, if these cursed beings have ought to bring remnants of blessings, or omens to demising fates.