The Rooms

The purple padded walls provided the solace every time I needed it, they still do. The walls and ceiling and floor went through the same thing I did. I dug holes in the protection and expressed myself on surfaces I wasn’t meant to.
My secrets are still in the room. The hurt, the pleasure, the pain. It’s all there. The only thing that’s changed is the way in. It was the best place to express myself because only I knew to look there.
Cupboards cover most of the history in a vain attempt by my mother. My keepers are in there with tear stained ears that still smell like salt and frustration.
I could do what I wanted in there, be who I wanted, what I wanted. I could be the person Mum refused to accept, the girls who could never breathe or the sack of flesh and bone that needed to feel the burn to make sure she was still alive.
I was the rebel that day. I sat on the cream floor and watched as the almost silver beauty floated to the ground. I grimaced as I punctured and painted and still felt no release.
She was my mirror.
The war paint covered her soul in the same way the fire gouged at mine. Her beauty failed her, all because of that moment. Her happiness ended when mine did.
She lost her husband and children and was banished to the world where I thought I’d be forever. Everything was black for us. Black hair, black eyes, black soul. Black past.
No one dared to enter where all I had was my thoughts. But the solution was to move me to another room. A cream one with posters and a sensible brown carpet. The only window showed the pigeons escaping to a better place. The window showed the sky; a perfect flaky frame for the perfectly dull day. There was silence in every room I stepped in.
The neutral one was full of expectation and mine was full of a new reality. Neither room would let me forget the fruits of my labour, sitting in front of me with a new face and a new expression.