I’ll close the door to your bedroom

and turn the hall light off

I’ll keep down the volume

I’ll put your clothes in the wash

I won’t leave a note

it would smell like my perfume

I’ll leave my side of the bed cold

I’ll take my toothbrush from the sink in the bathroom

I’ll take my clothes from the closet

I’ll scribble out my name in your journal

put the tear-soaked tissues in my pocket

and burn all my letters, my words aren’t eternal

I’ll return your lighter

and wipe off my fingerprints off the counter

sear with every fibre

of my body - I’m out of power

I’ll find my scrunchie behind your bed

and wear it out on my wrist

let me join the dead

pretend we didn’t exist

I’ll tie my shoes outside

I’ll leave quickly this time

we grew up

in a partial build

a house never quite finished

and when people came to visit

they remained aghast at the lack

of bedroom doors...

An American necessity perhaps?

well giving in to social pressures

the family added over time

these light hollow panels

...with no door handles...

yes by that age even I thought

it strange, their omission...

having to crawl awkwardly

to pry open a way

from the crack

between the floor

in somewhat irrational

urgency because after all

what did it matter?

there was no lock

up on it...

And even when

the Knob was finally added

and it was several years in

it was merely decorative

a non-turning button

that did nothing

to hold the place in the frame

in the center left or right

(as is the traditional custom)

And still no lock was on it

I don't see this as aesthetic ploy

or feng shui or fun per se

but rather as a thing symbolic

or metaphoric...

the carpenter having some

philosophic tick

against it, in or out

I cannot say except

I've known

the well of panic!

from either side

...of the door

that will not open

and the one that

refuses to be shut

08.29.2023

Close a Door challenge @AJAY9979

I can't go back. I can't make different choices or speak to my younger self or use any of the methods of time travel dreamed up by so many who want to reach behind. This path, these choices, this present and the anticipated version of the future that I took--I can't change how it began. It feels like I should be able to, it was my path after all. I forged it myself, I took the trouble of walking through time, moment by moment, making decisions. You would think that would entitle some ownership, and you would think that ownership would come with editing rights. But no. It doesn't. There is only the choice now. And there is only the hope of a future that won't be so full of looking backwards to where it began.

There were times where I thought the world would be better if I just disappeared.

People like me didn't always think that they wished that they were dead. People like me wished that they never existed.

- letting go my past thoughts, part 2.

11:11 P.M.

I can’t stop opening the door to you, to us, behind the door is the grave you buried our friendship in, along with the time capsule filled with once treasured memories. I dig it up all the time, inwardly I cry over what used to be, the fragments of our once beautiful story. I miss you, I can’t seem to stop, I know there’s a small part of me that always will. It’s not like before, it doesn’t ache like it used to, but there’s a reason I still think of you.

I hate you! Why did you have to come back?! I was doing so well forgetting about you yet one text was all it took to send me spiralling again, why do you still even have my number? Please tell me you’ve deleted it, I just wanna move on. But I don’t, not really, I don’t wanna forget you I mean what happens after that? But I do, I wish I could forget we ever met, burn down the door, the memories, everything! I wish I could lock the door and forget where I put the key. I wish we could simply be acquaintances and just catch up every so often without it blindsiding me. I wish 2011 was the last time I heard from you, but it’s been 8 years of you coming back, 8 years of me letting you.

I wish we’d carried on growing up together like we planned, being roommates, each other’s bridesmaids, when I saw you got married a couple years ago it reminded me of how you lied. I love you, you know I do, that’s why you pick me up at whim like you do isn’t it? You know I’ll come back,.. I don’t wanna come back not anymore. I wish we could just have one last conversation, one last hug, one last fight, one last laugh, then shake hands, light a match and finally burn everything down together, finally agreeing to never look back.

The time is now to close the door dear friend.

The deceit, the lies, must end.

This journey has gone on for far too long.

This decision to part was not made on a whim.

The thing is. You're not my friend. You are the ghost that haunts me within.

You have held me back from healing and from seeing myself for who I really am.

But my heart is now armored like a shell protecting the sand.

The waves may brush by but you can no longer come in.

I deserve to blossom and now I can.

The time is now to close the door and to be my own friend.

Your foot's in the door

Keeping it ajar

My pride's on the floor

Weeping from afar

Adjoining rooms are portals

For the feckless mortals

Who shouldn't be together

Conjoined in life by tether

It will hurt when I stomp

On the foot from the swamp

That keeps me in the slaughter

Come Hell or high water

It's a final blow

That crushes the toe

And causes withdrawal

From death laced in floral

For slam and shut and lock and seal

Are not pretty words to end our ordeal

Time's come to stop the shelling

I can no longer buy what you're selling

Burning out in the cold has its consequences when my skills slowly become warped into weapons. There is this sneaky way you twist my words to straighten your own. This sneaky way you try to teach me to accept abuse when it comes wrapped with a bow. I hope you know that placing it gently in my hands won't change my mind. Not when you stripped me down to the bone, ripped me to pieces. It isnt my job to guard your heart and protect your feelings- I don't owe you anything.

But somehow you're still coming out better on the other side. Leaving me behind, stuck in your shadow, choked in the darkness without a purpose. So now I have no choice but to be duplicitous, changing my mind and then changing it again. I can't be ornamental anymore. I can't find any more parts of myself to shine for you. So go ahead and fold your ears, roll your eyes, and write about all my misgivings. Because through all of it, I will know.

I will know that even though you masquerade me as the offense, you're the one acting out of line. You're putting me down for your own peace of mind, using your indomitable strength as a ploy.

But I finally feel safe with the idea of change, and so when I haunt you from the shadows, I think I will finally have the courage to smile. Because I know your pathetic pride will only rot your mind, leaving you to crumble in the background, while I finally come out on top.

The scent of smoke

Its presence lingered in your room

That scent reminds me of you

The moments I had left with you

Your raspy voice from the ages of smoking you did.

I didn’t know your time was limited

I didn’t know I wouldn’t have you around forever

I remember you, smiling and laughing at my made up stories

Did you know that I made them up?

We would watch family shows together and laugh.

After we finished watching them, you always wanted to admire the plants in your garden.

You would always struggle to get up but at the end you would just smile at me like everything was okay.

You would slowly make your way to the sliding doors while I followed closely behind you.

You would always ask me to help open the doors and I did it happily.

You would sit down with a coffee and admire the greenery.

I wondered if that rubbed off on me..

Is that why I love flowers?

Because they remind me of you?

You would always tell me about every plant in your garden.

And I would enjoy it, but my little six year old brain didn’t understand any of it.

But I enjoyed talking to you.

When I had to go, you always placed a kiss on my cheek and wished me well.

I stopped going to your house when I started to grow up.

And then you withered away.

I cried that day like a part of me just withered away.

I felt like I lost a piece of me that day.

I always cry when I think about you.

Even now, I still cry.

I love you grandpa.

Yet I feel like I’m to late to say that.