Keep Quiet

by Emma Freeman

That house where I played when I was a child 

was not safe it turned out

but I did not know that then

or how to say that to anyone

It was there that I saw 

what no child should ever see

and then I saw it again

and again and again

my body ached each time

but the pain somehow mixed with curiosity

and pleasure and confused me

Those experiences got locked inside my body

for years and years and years

festering

causing me to act on their behalf

I longed for what I saw

and sought it out wherever I could

an addiction formed

masking itself as self-soothing

rooted in a deep wound I couldn’t see

and did not know how to heal

playing itself out on an endless loop 

creating deeper tunnels of shame and guilt

that I secretly lived inside of

Then, one day

many, many years later

something called to me and I knew what I had to do

So I dove down into the dark cave of that memory

and walked into that house

I found little me standing in that dim hallway 

with the green shag carpet outside the bathroom

I walked up to her

crouched down and looked into her soft blue eyes

and could see how scared she was

I wrapped my arms around her small, tender body

and told her that it wasn’t safe in that house 

and asked her to come with me

I held her hand

as we walked down the hallway together 

past the bedroom with the loud black and white tv on

where my friend’s grandma slept with a gun under her bed

through the kitchen full of boxes of potato chips and bags of milk

past the basement stairs where the raccoons were kept 

and hundreds of tiny white ceramic figurines

sat silently on shelves

We walked together to the front door

and as it opened

I felt her hand squeeze mine as I gently squeezed back

the smell of fresh air almost knocked us both over

like a cleansing tidal wave 

finally washing away the stale residue of that house

that had seeped into our skin

As soon as we got safely to the street

I turned around

took a deep breath

lit a match

and burned that house down to the ground