the boxes line the halls. they sit stacked up in the front room. an unpracticed eye could hardly tell if i'm on my way out or just coming in.
moving. again. and i think how long have i been here. i guess six years. this time. give or take one or two. i was young when i came here. barely twenty and newly married. ready to paint over the demons that existed here. left over from my own misspent youth.
and it's so hard to tell. if i've healed or just created more. standing in my daughter's room. walls pristine and clean. and i think...my God, i used to dream here. paint my nails black and play MASH. there's still puff paint hearts in the closet where me and my best friend would imagine ourselves in love, pairing our names with boys just to see how they looked.
last i heard, she'd dated a man who bought her a car then took it back when his wife found out.
i guess i'm not the only one who screwed up.
and i stand in my room now. or my parents old room. or my old room, i suppose, after i leave tomorrow. and i trace the holes in the walls. beside where my bed used to be. and i think how i used to come here. when i was six and scared and climb into bed with my mother. and how sometimes i wish i could do that now.
then at twenty one it became my refuge. where i ran to during the worst beatings of my life. as my husband raged i'd curl into a ball and wait. wait for the blows that would always cause me to cave. and this hole was from the stereo he threw. and this one from a black light. and this other one from something, i guess i have forgotten.
and then there's the garage. where my father would sit in a green chair and smoke his cigarettes as i would sit and listen to his tales of history and war, and we'd play air guitar to tunes on his 8 track.
the door from the garage to the inside has since been kicked in. there's a hole in it from the handle of a sword, used by my lover to defend my honor. or whatever the hell he was doing.
i've not looked at the kitchen the same since.
and it's funny how the same old guys still come over. and i still fall time and time again for their lines. and wish it was just not so...just not so hard to let go.
there's a mirror hanging in the hallway. it was painted by my mother when she was my age. hung there everyday of my childhood. my step mother sold it in a garage sale. shortly after marrying my father. right before we moved.
my neighbor bought it and gave it to me on the day i moved back in. as if she knew, i'd be back to reclaim what i had lost. and i guess in some ways i have.
it took a certain kind of courage to enter this house six years ago. a house full of memories and ghosts and such. armed with paint and tile and determined to change things. completely naive i suppose.
which is what i'm going for now, i suppose, kind of a blind hope. naivete. belief that wherever i go now will be much simpler. quieter. and not have quite so many rooms to paint.
Reason for writing:
not a poem. but i wrote it just the same.
Birth sign: Libra
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