{"id":6429,"date":"2014-01-23T01:00:57","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T06:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=6429"},"modified":"2014-01-24T10:44:16","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:44:16","slug":"burning-down-the-doll-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/burning-down-the-doll-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning Down The Doll House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BurningDown\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fires licked pink, plastic walls, turning them black.\u00a0 Floors melted.\u00a0 Windows filled with smoke.\u00a0 Toy furniture ignited.\u00a0 A small figurine stood in the corner, waiting for her end, and the flames drew closer.\u00a0 But then I saved her.\u00a0 She was the ghost of me.<\/p>\n

I lost my innocence when I was eight.\u00a0 I can\u2019t forget.\u00a0 I try, but that moment shines like yesterday.\u00a0 There\u2019s no erasing the past.\u00a0 It takes hold of the future, but no more will I let it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome find me,” he says, but there is no perfect world beyond this doll house, no sanctuary to find.\u00a0 If I open that door, what monsters wait for me, and what if I never find him?\u00a0 Would I fall again, break apart like this porcelain doll held tightly in my hand?<\/p>\n

This was what I wanted, to find love.\u00a0 I want to be loved.\u00a0 My dreams teased me.\u00a0 \u201cCome find me,\u201d he says, but can I really leave here?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She was the ghost of me.\u00a0 She broke so many times.\u00a0 She held fast now.\u00a0 Strength shined in her eyes and heart.\u00a0 She was alive, but did she feel it?\u00a0 Or did she just feel the fire now stealing across her home?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time.\u00a0 It\u2019s time I left here.\u00a0 I need to love.\u00a0 I want to be loved, and I can\u2019t while I am here.\u00a0 Whether or not I find him, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 I have to live, and to do that, I need to leave behind these plastic walls.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s time, and she would remain beside me, my ghost.\u00a0 And I say, good-bye to the doll house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

I lost my innocence when I was eight. I can\u2019t forget. I try, but that moment shines like yesterday. There\u2019s no erasing the past. It takes hold of the future, but no more will I let it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome find me,” he says, but there is no perfect world beyond this doll house, no sanctuary to find.<\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":6702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,218,200,219],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6429"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6704,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions\/6704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}