Self Expression #11

The House I Can’t Own 

In the quiet,

I return to the rooms of my memory.

To the ragged house that sits behind my home.

Where I do not live,

but frequently roam.

Where the past welcomes me in 

Where age has given me the keys to all doors

This is all there is 

Nothing more.

I know this house’s secrets.

Where each room is.

What they hold.

The kitchen houses

My salty tears, 

The sweet sound of laughter 

That’s changed through the years,

And all those bitter goodbyes,

Coupled with the pain I had set aside.

The flavors here are muted.

They do not burst on my tongue.

They are more palatable, 

pleasurable even.

Their intense taste dulled

Into a sappy sweetness.

Two bedrooms exist,

One set for a child.

Here is a room

I have not visited a while.

The memories here are harder to see,

Under the clutter and the debris.

The room has been vacant,

But it still holds 

the silly little dreams

Of a little girl

Before she grew old.

The other bedroom,

Isn’t quite as tattered.

The paint is not peeling

Mold has not gathered.

This is the place where

More recent dreams died.

I do not enter.

Nor have I tried.

Like these

Infinite rooms line these halls,

I do not have time to stop at them all. 

I pick my favorites,

And some rooms pick me.

I’ll explore the difficult ones

Eventually.

I take in their histories,

The ones lost to me.

The ones retouched and painted over

By whatever means necessary

To forget the weight of the moment.

It’s a complex symphony

of love, 

fear 

and anxiety.

It is much easier to have been

Than to be 

Existing 

in a world full of 

Uncertainty.

But these rooms are not mine

And soon I must leave.

But day after day I will return 

To this little house 

Of lessons I’ve learned.