Before the Running

If I were to disappear, what would I take with me?
More importantly, what would I leave behind?

What about my grandmother’s trunk,
the one with trinkets from childhood:
first napkin, first toy.

I can’t take that with me.
I can’t leave it to rot under my bed either.

Maybe I’ll feed it to a fire before I leave.
Will I find the courage to watch it all burn,
the flames licking away at what was supposed to be the beginning?

Would burning it all up mark the end?

While the fire feeds on the echoes of my innocence,
I walk back inside.

The house feels too still. Too aware.

My room waits for me—one last time.
I drag myself to it.

Decorations, used cans, picture frames,
dirty laundry
all watching me.

As if to say: deal with us before you leave.

The people that live in my frames
still ask questions I will never find answers to.

So I suppose I do the only thing I could do.

Empty boxes appear,
clothes folded for once, neatly.

Maybe shame makes me flip the frames face down,
my former selves glaring holes into the side of my head,
as I try my best not to meet their eyes.

I tear the pieces of paper into tiny little pieces,
and blow as I watch them fall, and fall.

My bed made, sheets changed,
trash taken out.

I stuff the boxes under my bed.

Friendship bracelets. Memory boxes.
All of it into a bag for the neighbor’s bin.

The garbage truck will be here tomorrow
and take the remnants of friendships I no longer hold onto.

Bare walls. Empty shelves. Drawers open like wounds.

Maybe a ceremonial white sheet over all my furniture.
The rug stuffed into the empty closet.

Only the duffel bag remains.
One pair of clothes.
All the cash I have saved up.

It will be enough to start a new life.
Or at least I will hope so.

The house tries to change my mind,
echoes of our shouts in the hallway:
“You’re making a mistake.”

All the voices tugging at my heart,
so I stuff it into my bag with the rest of my things.

I don’t have much time.

I delete emails.
Lose all the numbers.
Throw my charger out.
Leave my phone on the desk,
its battery dying by the second.

One last peanut butter and jelly won’t hurt.
I wash the plate. Dry it too.

Then the tickets.

An old town tucked in the dark nooks of the country,
the kind of place people don’t look for missing persons in.

No allure except peace.

My heart practically beats out of my chest.
The uncertainty of things,
my bleak future,
all waiting just around the corner.

But fortunately, the train doesn’t make any unnecessary turns.

It forges on ahead,
a one-way journey,
taking me farther and farther away from the place I once called home.

Because that’s the thing about homes.

You never realize when you leave what once held you,
or when you learn that your home is just a house.

And the thing about a house—
it can be abandoned as easily as it is built.