A gentle dust has settled here upon each surface of the room. In the dark, it's carved black, boxy gray, and wan moonlight. I should not come here, stand at the threshold, and stare into the hollowness. It doesn't change things. But still I come.
The room is filled with nameless things: prickled, hostile distances in narrow places; unfinished sentences and tapered words; yawning chasms. It is a place of undone, a place of inaction. Sometimes a place of too many actions. It brims, this room, brims and overflows and yet is so vastly empty. It offers me nothing. But still I come.
I stand in the doorway, my toe a careful line between where I am now and where I have been before. My eyes move from one thing to the next, taking in the accumulation of abandonment. It is thicker in places than others and on those surfaces, I see the reflection of things I've come back to too often. There, I can see the hasty swipe of my hand on top of a moment. The grooves of my fingers are still tracks in the dust, slowly being covered over. I stand here in the doorway, my hand a claw around the frame, and keep myself from going inside to handle things I ought to leave alone.
My thoughts beat a warning: Don't. Don't. Don't. I force myself to recall the times I have entered: how I picked up and studied and worried at those bits of time and how after I felt swollen and scraped. Memory fills up the spaces but I still manage to create pathways wide enough for me. I force myself to stay outside but I cannot keep my mind from wandering in.
I tell myself there's good in here. It's good to see it all because remembering keeps me from repeating, but in large part it isn't. And I know that. But I am drawn here time and time again. All I can do is paw through the piles and boxes and shrouded furniture, reliving every moment. And it isn't good for me at all.
I stand in the doorway to a room full of my mistakes. There are so many—old and new—and I punish myself so often by examining them. And while I will not let myself go inside, I cannot make myself go out. It is just me, my memories, and a hollow room.
6 comments:
Wow. Just...wow. This is so haunting and so powerful. Yet incredibly painful, too. I'm sending you lots of hugs, but I'm also sending you encouragement to keep going and to keep writing. You are so very talented.
Oh Laura, your words are always so beautiful. And I hope you understand that I am grateful for your mistakes, because they've made you who you are today, and I love that person.
I can really only echo what the other two comments say. Beautiful imagery, and we've all been there. For me, too often.
Your writing has such a voice of its own. Seriously beautiful Laura!
I don't know how you do it, but you always seem to put my inner most thoughts and feelings into the most beautiful prose.
Don't be down on yourself Laura. We all have done things that we regret. It's not God that wants us to feel bad about ourselves, it's the other guy. God has already forgiven us. He's just waiting for us with open arms to forgive ourselves.
That's some advice I need to take as well.
SO lovely and painful and real. You know what it is to live, and we feel it.
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