Hands coated in spackle, breathing deeply, the summer heat unrelenting. She knows nothing of me, nature, refusing to blow a breeze through my window. This is a sauna of my own design. A day of ripping outdated wallpaper from the 70s into sheets. They lay on the carpet like fish, baking in the heat. 

I never realized how many holes were poked into these walls. 

The room, who’s only had a brief encounter with the concept of insulation, couldn’t trap heat or keep cool, their whim given to nature’s heart. Maybe that’s why the walls were covered in flowers. This room only ever listened to nature, only held her in mind. I feel a little bad for stripping the wall of their garden, but only a little. Their flowers seem to hurt more like thorns. 

The silence of the room, a judgement to my past. 

In the end, I can’t help but feel stupid for wanting to do this. Standing in my childhood bedroom, after I’ve already gotten the means to get out, stripping the pink flowers from the walls. Each one separating painfully slow, adhesive begging to stay. It was better that way. 

Is this what anger looks like?

My feet ache, sinking into the mint green carpet, my hands clutching the last remnants of the wallpaper so hard my joints shake. I think to myself; this time is the last time I see this house. I will never return, no one will make me.

Time lies better than the self. 

It is universally understood that part of growing up is realizing that everything you thought was permanent, actually sits on sand. The foundations built will crumble, the lies crack open and show their face. A garden of roses pressed into walls leave the sharpest pieces of themselves behind. Self-destructive in their attempt at preserving the past.

Was that what healing looked like?

Changing that space, replacing all the furniture, cleansing an old wardrobe of clothes less than a decade old. A reckoning has taken place, but I don’t see any coverage in the news. How did they not feel the Earth shift beneath my feet, see the plumes of smoke that warn destruction. They don’t fear the girl who changed every piece of herself. What it cost her to ignore the cut of thorns from a wall that was never that healthy to begin with. 

When a scream leaves my lips as a sigh.

I put a salve of spackle in the places on the walls that were punctured. Gently, I brush the walls with my hands. Carefully, I dip the roller in freshly bought paint. Slowly, when approaching the wall, I say, “I made sure the undertone was red, so when the setting sun hit your walls, it would turn pink. Like the flowers you loved.” The ones that were already dead. For the first time I hear the walls breath, a deep rattling sound. One final aftershock.