Fires licked pink, plastic walls, turning them black. Floors melted. Windows filled with smoke. Toy furniture ignited. A small figurine stood in the corner, waiting for her end, and the flames drew closer. But then I saved her. She was the ghost of me.
I lost my innocence when I was eight. I can’t forget. I try, but that moment shines like yesterday. There’s no erasing the past. It takes hold of the future, but no more will I let it.
“Come find me,” he says, but there is no perfect world beyond this doll house, no sanctuary to find. If I open that door, what monsters wait for me, and what if I never find him? Would I fall again, break apart like this porcelain doll held tightly in my hand?
This was what I wanted, to find love. I want to be loved. My dreams teased me. “Come find me,” he says, but can I really leave here?
I could count the monsters on my fingertips. I played the fool over and over again, allowing the same man into my life, and each time, he tore me down. I was left broken, and this doll house became sanctuary. Here, they could not touch me, and here, I would live. But not anymore.
She was the ghost of me. She broke so many times. She held fast now. Strength shined in her eyes and heart. She was alive, but did she feel it? Or did she just feel the fire now stealing across her home?
It’s time. It’s time I left here. I need to love. I want to be loved, and I can’t while I am here. Whether or not I find him, it doesn’t matter. I have to live, and to do that, I need to leave behind these plastic walls. So, it’s time, and she would remain beside me, my ghost. And I say, good-bye to the doll house.
