Memories.

Written on October 2, 2020

There are memories locked away in this cage I call my mind that my lips won’t let me speak out loud. No matter how hard I try, the words never come out, my tongue won’t curl around them the way it’s supposed to, and my pen refuses to write on this pad.

These memories laid dormant for years and then one day the floodgates opened. Now they won’t stop rushing in.

I keep rearranging my room in hopes that it’ll help me forget again. Maybe if the space looks different, it won’t feel so heavy anymore. Maybe my childhood bed frame can protect me from those memories just like how it protected me from the monster that lived under it so long ago. Maybe this mattress pad will soften these cognitive attacks. Maybe if I move this furniture around enough, I will move those memories to the back of my mind.

Memories of us. Joyful, at their creation, but less so now. I keep trying to look at them through rose-tinted glasses, but all I see is red.

All I see is broken promises and crossed boundaries. He broke my trust long before he broke my heart; perhaps that wasn’t my first heartbreak.

I wish I had it in me to speak those memories out loud — to give them life so I could finally kill them. I wish I had it in me to open these wounds so I could stitch them back up more neatly. I wish I could go back and hold that version of me because all she wanted was to feel held.

But I don’t. And I can’t.

And those words will go unwritten, unpublished. Those stories will go untold. Those memories will live with me, and me alone. And I will continue to grieve the girl who looked to be held in arms too weak to carry her. And I will pray for protection from the monster that lives under this bed now.