there's a special place in my head where i go to be alone.
it looks a lot like my old bedroom, adorned with posters of bands i used to like, and torn up wallpaper from the 1970s. tacky, filthy carpet covered in dog fur and dust, and the suffocating stink of age.
its so silently loud, blaring the music i adore so loudly into my ears that i dont notice it at all. my step-sisters bed is in there, too, but shes never home. shes off sneaking around with her friends, like she used to do when we were younger; getting high, loitering in store parking lots, never answering my anxious texts, questioning whether or not she needed me to lie to our parents about her whereabouts again.
and theres a special place in hell for my overworked, underpaid heart. the big men in charge tell me so.
i used to rent my heart out to make ends meet, atriums and ventricles remodeled into apartments, for my blood, like neighbors, to live in and argue over loud music and the musky, earthy smell of marijuana — the scent of my childhood — seeping through the walls and windows, clinging for dear life onto the wallpaper.
i was not a bad landlord. i fixed what needed fixing, turned a blind eye to new and colourful walls, and put my headphones in when things got loud at night. i would give and give and give as a good landlord should. my tenants had always been friends of mine. they did not pay rent, and i bought their food — roommates. they were my roommates. i grew to understand over time, that i was not the one in power, the gracious one, or a friend. i was a provider. i would give and give and give and never take.
i grew bitter. i would leave wounds elsewhere to chase my so called friends from the building to repair what they had the motivation to. i repainted their walls. i enforced ridiculous rules. i became what id loathed.
the silence while they were gone was something i used to savour. now ive chased out the inhabitants from my stale off-white apartment complex heart, and the dust has settled. for so long it sat, empty, numb, soulless.
when she came knocking at the door, id expected her to leave quickly after seeing the holes in the drywall and the graffitied ceilings, covered in slurs and deadly sentiments.
i opened up for her and let her in, watching her eyes dart all across the entrance hall before flicking back to me. she grabbed my hand and held it tight all throughout my jumbled tour of my cold abandoned heart. smiling kindly through all of my stories, showing empathy and cursing those whod broken in through my windows.
as she took a final look around and walked out the door, the warmth left the building entirely, and id convinced myself i was a doomed to be alone forever, hardly noticing her walking back in with her bags.
as she unpacked, the circulation returned to my body. she painted the walls her favourite shade of orange — marigold — and hung up her posters and newspaper clippings. she helped me repaint my room, too, and listened to me ramble about the bands on the posters shed given me the courage to hang back up.
she came with her own luggage, too. pictures and paintings of unsavory memories. shed find the deep dark broom closets of my building, which id locked away unpleasant experiences in. together, we learned how to replace the lights, and put flowers where her pictures were.
now my heart is a home, and when shes gone i sit in what was once her room, turned ours, and stare at her clothes on the floor and the indent from her head on her pillow, and smile, remembering how much happier id been since shed filled the hallways with all her favourite colours.
