I have come to the house for one thing only—
to collect what belongs to me, to remove all
evidence of my living here, in this home, in this
yellow-walled room I shared with my brothers.
The walls, I remember so much of them –
the thing I faced when I wanted to look away,
how the shadows cast over them at night.
A hand reaching for me in my sleep,
A heavy breath at the back of my neck.
I turn to move my body from its coldness,
but nowhere to go than to press myself into the wall,
wishing it would open up and take me, praying it
would crack under the pressure of my heart
and make a stone room soft enough for the flesh.
I know what it has seen.
I know what it has heard.
All its quiet witnessing, its powerless gaze.
Even if I scrub this place clean,
the walls will carry what I cannot take with me.
So I leave it all behind—my journals, my clothes,
the little fearful girl that never made it out the door.

If the town comes looking for her,
tell them she’s in the walls.
She’s deep and high in the walls
looking down on the filthy hands
that can’t touch her anymore.