I Don't Live Here Anymore

This place feels like a distant dream, like a fading memory. The walls seem to be dissolving right before my eyes, wispy like smoke and I’m afraid I won’t remember what it felt like, what it used to be, anymore.

Looking back to the first time I walked in the door, I wasn’t too sure about what I felt about the place, wasn’t sure about how I was meant to feel. I’d stumbled upon it quite by accident, a wrong turn at the wrong time while on my merry way somewhere, and I’d found myself here. Well, I’d said to myself, I’m just looking, no harm in stopping by. But then I lingered and the place called out to me, welcomed me with its warmth and personality. Its laughter rang out loud in my ears and I realised I’d forgotten how to laugh. Its walls were sunshine to my world reminding me of how cold it’d been. Room after room offered me sweet, warm friendship, filling up the void I never even knew was there. My feet sank into the deep, plush carpets. That spot on the sofa fit my derrière like a glove and I laid my head back, put up my feet, a warm fire roaring in the hearth before me, a hot drink in my hand, the cold outside forgotten. I was home…

We both sat like that for ages and talked long into the night, like the long lost friends that we were. A smile here, a little laugh there. Tears shared, memories relieved. We split the burdens, pacted on the secrets. Mates of heart and soul, besties forever. We talked about nothing and everything, what had been, and what was, and what would never be. It became home the way nowhere else had been and it filled every bit of me with itself. It was in my head, my bones, my mind, the air I breathed, in my very pores. I closed my eyes and drank it in deeply, the feeling of content settling over me, enveloping me, surrounding me, wrapping me up snugly…until I grew cold and started to shiver.

Even now, I’m still trying to figure out what happened, how it came to this, when the soft rounded surfaces became sharp cutting edges. How did I start to stumble down the stairs that were so familiar and trip over the floors I loved so much?! When did the songs fade and the laughter die? In my heart, I still see the roaring fire and long for home, long for what here used to be, knowing this hollow I live in now isn’t here. The silence is all I hear and I’m more lost than when I’d first missed my way and stumbled upon your threshold. The storms have raged against our walls and washed you away, washed the ambience out, leaving just dank, cold walls behind. I want to ride upon the storm after you, try to find you and bring you back. But then, I never was a good swimmer and I would drown. I know now that we both knew that some things are part of the what would never be. So now I’m shutting the door behind me, leaving the spooky, haunted house in the past, trying to find the way I’d missed in the first place and longing for home because I woke up one day and realised I don’t live here anymore…