To the Room I Once Called Mine
You had pink walls and a closet full of secrets. A narrow bed tucked beneath the window, where light spilled in like a story waiting to be told. The floor creaked with every step, and the air always smelled faintly of summer — of warmed paper, worn cotton, and the earth still clinging to my skin from the fields.
I was a girl then, wild in ways only childhood permits. I ran barefoot between rows of sweet corn, strong-legged from long days on the farm, fingers stained from strawberries and sun. I played outside until dusk — anything that let me move. I remember the thrill, the grit on my knees, the feeling of being seen.
And yet, I returned to you just as fiercely. To the books stacked in crooked towers beside my bed. Harry Potter whispered spells through the night. Anne taught me how to long for beauty. And Violet Baudelaire reminded me that cleverness is a kind of magic, too.
Your closet heard things no one else did — pencil-scrawled confessions, boys’ names etched along the doorframe like incantations. I didn’t have the language to share what I felt, so I gave it to the walls. I had to tell someone, and you, quiet and pink and patient, listened.
My little brother would barrel in without knocking — always a whirlwind of noise and energy. You saw the way I loved him and the way I sometimes wished he’d disappear long enough for me to finish a page, a sentence, a dream. You were our peace treaty, our battleground, our shared world.
I tried on so many versions of myself within your walls. I wore glitter and bruises. I cried over stories and sometimes for no reason at all. I wrote things I never showed anyone. You held all of it — every flutter, every fall, every beginning.
I wouldn’t go back — not truly. That girl has long since grown into someone softer, someone slower. But there are moments when I sip tea and the light hits just right, and I remember.
You were mine once.
And I carry you still.
