Please know the following post may be triggering to read for survivors of abuse. Also know this post is very brave and beautiful. Be gentle with yourselves.
I lived in this place once.
It was an awful hovel of a place.
A mobile home, painted brown,
with a dented in roof from where a tree had fallen on it,
which was being held up by a two-by-four,
and with a carport that had been converted into an addition
simply by putting up 3 walls and laying down carpet.
When it would rain, the carpet in the addition would get soaked
and would eventually mold
and mushrooms grew.
The landlord was a rapist
whose youngest step-daughter was my best friend.
He probably gave my mom’s boyfriend tips on
how to molest me
without getting caught.
This place features prominently
in my recurring nightmares.
Not just the trailer, but
the land itself.
In one of my favorites
I’m in my bedroom in the trailer and
all my stuff is still there –
like we packed up to move,
but never left.
I find my favorite clothes,
schoolwork,
and most importantly
the little, ceramic bears I collected as a kid.
I’m trying to find myself –
trying to recover my childhood.
That loss neither began
nor ended
in that trailer,
but irreversible damage
was done there.
I lost the final remnants of my
innocence there.
Many parts of me died there.
I have shadows of good memories there, but
they’re tarnished by
the darkness
that oozes out of the place.
The landlord’s house is still on that land, but
the trailer no longer exists,
except in the minds of those
who dream
or have nightmares
about it.