They tore down the wall and found the fireplace. Ash and age had stained the bricks, which they cleaned as best they could. The woodworking around the entry took more time. Some occupant in a misguided age had painted it, covered the grain and its ornamentation in generic white, but a scraper and painstaking hours released the relic within: chestnut, common enough in 1891 but a disappeared wood now. It took the years and the blight between to clarify its worth.

This is the living room in which our dogs play, where we drop crumbs while watching television, where our children have spilled juice, and that is as it should be: this is a room with history.

I am alone

my bedroom is not familiar

The door is closed

on the history

of my past.

I am alone

waiting for your knock

Halfway stuck

in my past

I know

you must be there

somewhere

I am alone

bewildered

by new surroundings

I am waiting

for you

where are you?

I am alone

wanting

to unveil

my sheets

in my memories.

I am alone

I touch the paint

on the walls

witness to so much

happiness with you

I am alone

watching

birth of silence

blowing dust

of my life

into hereafter

where you reside.

Vignette/sketch of sheets

Buried beneath spines, exposed

Wallpaper of words

*the den /study /library /she-shed

Four walls, three dressers, three racks full of clothes.

Two windows, One restroom, and a closet full of who knows.

A big wall television and two lamps for the light.

Dallas Cowboys on the wall and bed set for the night.

Two bedside tables and a piece of mind.

Surrounds me with dreams in my "One of a Kind."

It's new,

Built from the ground up.

It hasn't had the time,

It hasn't had the life.

Just a year old,

This home, this room

Is but a baby.

Just waiting.

This room is waiting,

Just waiting for stories.

It wants to tell you,

Tell you everything.

Yet there is nothing,

Nothing to share.

Just the pitter-patter

Of feet and paws.

This room is waiting.

One day, this room will tell

All of the stories

That have yet to come.

I have been renting a duplex for the past 10 months. The bedroom is where I spend most of my time and all it contains is a bed, a desk, and a chair. A calendar hangs on the wall with scotch tape because the walls are too hard to drill or nail anything into. Knowing that this place was going to be temporary, I didn't bother much with decorating. I've gotten used to the lack of color in the room. This room has been the first place I've been living since moving back to my hometown. With that, it contains many of my secrets, such as my sadness from leaving a great city behind to come here. It contains my fear as I hear distant gunshots out my window frequently. It holds my anxiety of the unknown future. I've shed those emotions and secrets in this space and I like to think it holds them close in reverance behind its four walls.

I've had many moments laying on the bed, studying the details of the room. On the ceiling, I found little planet and star stickers painted over by the dull alabaster that surrounds me. They blend in so well with the grooves of the ceiling that I almost missed them. Maybe this was a child's room at one point? I remember having the same glow-in-the-dark stickers as a kid and staring at them from my bed. I would pretend I was traveling through space, an escape from the chaos at home. Above the door, there is the dust outline of a cross that once hung there. The nail and hook remain, but the cross was taken down. Maybe an older person lived in the room prior to the child, a grandparent followed by the grandchild. Maybe they were the same person and these are markings of their aging left behind.

I wonder what marking I'll be leaving behind. No matter how well I scrub and clean to get my damage deposit back, I'm sure I'll be leaving some trace of myself here. Will it be a tiny fleck of nail polish that flew onto the wall that I didn't notice? Will it be some of my cat's fur in the corner near his favorite sun spots? Maybe it could be the love and hope that I have learned to feel while residing within this space. During my time here, I came to the decision that I would try to thrive being back in my hometown. That would mean having to let go of some fears and work on pushing myself forward. Now, instead of looking at this place with despondency, I see it as a launching pad to greater things. I wonder what the other people will be like who will pass through this very room. Surely, there will be struggles and there will be happiness. There may be breakups or families being made. There may be excitement or fear. Whatever the case, I hope that it is filled with love, the same love I felt while living here.

Where I sleep at night is not my room, but the room of dozens of renters that came before my family and I. Romances, sleepless nights, teary pillowcases, a crack in the corner where the hole he punched in was spackled and painted over. If these walls could talk...Well, if they could I wouldn't listen. I don't want to know who came before me and what lies they told each other here. I don't want to know about the bunk beds that only held one child after the first year. I don't want to know about the wine stains on the wood beneath the carpet. These things are conditions of human life, despite their inhumanity. But to live my life, I try to avoid these ugly realities until my curiosity takes over. Because in the end I do want to know, against my better judgement.

My bed has a pillow on either end

one for myself

the other for my puppy.

Beneath the bed

there lies another bed

already made, it awaits being rolled out.

Across from both beds

recycled shoebox drawers with art supplies

whose sketches fold neatly in the scarlet accordion organizer.

Put aside from my interests

to the right rests my college career

retired on the shelf.

At the forefront the centerpiece

an article about my adoption from China

spread as though a map on the glass table.

My room is my happy place. It is a chaotic tornado of everything that has ever made me happy. I have spent years filling my home with love, and happiness, but my room is my safe space. The pictures I drew, what seems like forever ago, collected on the walls. Photographs of my children, and my own minor accomplishments ( and failures) hung sporadically around the room.

Miss Piggy, and Kermit the frog sit on my head board, forever in love, just like we always wanted to be. Hot Wheels cars lining the window, because yes I am 12, and yes, they still make me happy 17 years later.

Geoffrey, the skeleton that helped me pass anatomy and physiology hangs in a corner of the room, right next to the closet that I hung a giant zombie tapestry over. My land lord is a dick, and I still can't get doors on my closet. My comic book collection sits on my husbands side of the bed. I'm running out of space, and I need to get more boxes. but the stories always get better, and wednesday's are always new comic book days.

My computer sits in there, and my playstation, my switch, and my N64. No one will play nintendo 64 with me anymore, they say it looks too old, but sometimes my brother will still stop by and play bomberman with me. I never get tired of that game.

My favorite books line the shelves on my bed. Neverwhere, The jungle, Poems to Read to the Very Young. I love them so.

This is my happy place.