Mikka Llarena

Mind Body

His heartbeat feels like a slow knock on his unyielding rib cage. He starts breathing deeply. His heart is pounding so fast that he strokes gently his pummeling chest. His stomach feels troubled and uneasy. His body numbs while there are hurried trembles that muddle his flesh and bones. He is trying to calm himself but the terror inside only gets worse. He feels like dying.

All the Things Left Unsaid

A gay son with a lot of clothes to wash is helped by his mother in sorting his laundry. While doing so, he looks back on his childhood days when he cleverly envisioned the laundry as a big ocean where the dirty clothes were cute little fishes. He also used to imagine the washing board as an enormous mountain and the basin as a paradise where the land meets the sea. But in this little world that he created, a sea witch trapped him in a bubble where he felt undesirable, unacceptable, and unbecoming.