Time Capsule

Note: I wrote this in 2018 after visiting my childhood home. It was a surreal feeling to be sleeping in the room in which I grew up, but as an adult able to look back with much more wisdom and healing under her belt.

This room is like a time capsule, but one I don’t want to open. I feel her around me within these four walls.

If these walls could speak, they’d talk about that teenager who’d come home after school or practice and close the door to drown herself in homework. Assignments offered a distraction.

These walls would recall the countless nights she was unable to sleep. Will they get caught? Is she breaking up their marriage? Why is he touching her constantly? How can you feel alive and dead at the same time? What do other people think? Is he mad at her today? Why doesn’t anyone save her? How does she keep her parents in the dark? Will he leave his wife for her? Is all of this her fault? Is he going to hurt her? Why does he leave her alone all the time? Is she a slut now? When did she become too dirty for God? Why is she depressed when things seem great? What is a good way to die?

They’d also remember the despair and loneliness that she sat with every evening, her back propped up against the bed as she stared at the wall. She heard “good night” through the door, but it didn’t open. No one walked through to see how things were or to check on the quiet one.

These walls would tell you where she hid the journal in which she tried to rationalize why a man 20 years older found her attractive. She is diligent about keeping names out and off of everything.

These walls watched carefully as she begged for rest. Her mind is moving but her body is still. This man she writes about has stolen good sleep from her...often his hands had robbed her body and added another cut to her heart just hours before. Sleep is illusive.