deepundergroundpoetry.com
Golden Pockets
Standing alone in my old house, residents carried away by cancer, yet still their presence remains in each coat of paint and flowerbed, all now partly concealed by my much needed indifference. The home is bare, stripped back to its shell, except for the ghosts of old furniture that appear, just for a second, as I enter each room.
I’m supposed to feel sad, it's just me and my brother now. We’ll split the money and never speak again but that doesn’t bring sadness. I stare out over aged gardens and contemplate my loss. Many times I have wept with my own forced memories, the self-torture that brings tears for company, but that is not why I want to shout. Losing family is painful, but a severed link to childhood is barren by comparison and I fear one will compound the other; such a loss makes me tremble inside.
I move on, a giant looking into shrunken bedrooms and gloomy hallways; too many tiny details fill my eyes, viewed like shards of glass from a broken vase, which I'm trying to reassemble. Each piece is an image: places I once played games, a soundbite from a past conversation, the odours of wet dog and washing days or doors opened and slammed shut. The glass cuts at my chest making it hard to breathe.
I place my hand on the wall to check for a heartbeat. Can it be that traces of lost childhood are captured in the fabric of a room, dwell in wooden handles of old tools or crayon scribblings trapped behind wallpaper? Can it be that if we close our eyes and breathe in the essence of childhood haunts then chemistry alone can unlock memories once key-less and forgotten? And in doing so can you retrieve something so precious it can twist your body, crumple your face and turn sobs into shouts. I’m shouting now as I slide down the wall; I felt it beat before pulling away.
Such places can be found in most of our footsteps and if you know how to look they can almost be touched. But my other places do not compare to this home, I could linger here for an eternity, drifting as a child, growing on thought and melancholy, surviving on smiles and laughter unlocked from memories.
I cannot linger, the house is sold to the highest bidder. I have offered up my most prized possession, my touch-stone, my portal, for a pocket full of gold. Now when I need to look, how can I return to these places that hold me in their essence, that tell my story? Who now will listen to the beating fabric of my old home?
I’m supposed to feel sad, it's just me and my brother now. We’ll split the money and never speak again but that doesn’t bring sadness. I stare out over aged gardens and contemplate my loss. Many times I have wept with my own forced memories, the self-torture that brings tears for company, but that is not why I want to shout. Losing family is painful, but a severed link to childhood is barren by comparison and I fear one will compound the other; such a loss makes me tremble inside.
I move on, a giant looking into shrunken bedrooms and gloomy hallways; too many tiny details fill my eyes, viewed like shards of glass from a broken vase, which I'm trying to reassemble. Each piece is an image: places I once played games, a soundbite from a past conversation, the odours of wet dog and washing days or doors opened and slammed shut. The glass cuts at my chest making it hard to breathe.
I place my hand on the wall to check for a heartbeat. Can it be that traces of lost childhood are captured in the fabric of a room, dwell in wooden handles of old tools or crayon scribblings trapped behind wallpaper? Can it be that if we close our eyes and breathe in the essence of childhood haunts then chemistry alone can unlock memories once key-less and forgotten? And in doing so can you retrieve something so precious it can twist your body, crumple your face and turn sobs into shouts. I’m shouting now as I slide down the wall; I felt it beat before pulling away.
Such places can be found in most of our footsteps and if you know how to look they can almost be touched. But my other places do not compare to this home, I could linger here for an eternity, drifting as a child, growing on thought and melancholy, surviving on smiles and laughter unlocked from memories.
I cannot linger, the house is sold to the highest bidder. I have offered up my most prized possession, my touch-stone, my portal, for a pocket full of gold. Now when I need to look, how can I return to these places that hold me in their essence, that tell my story? Who now will listen to the beating fabric of my old home?
Published 3rd Oct 2019
| Edited 13th Aug 2023
Author's Note
Clearing out my parents home after they passed away
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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3rd Oct 2019 5:12pm
This was so heartwarmingly moving. Not many people don't feel this way in regards to where they grew up. Unless you are like me, a military brat moving every few years to a new country and/or state. Then there is no childhood home. Yet, these places I visited where grandparents lived serve that purpose to a degree.
Old houses have a way of maintaining energy which is often infused anew by the presence of a child/ren. Maybe it, too, as you, needs new life breathed into it, having held the old for so long.
I am sorry for your loss.
Lovely write.
Old houses have a way of maintaining energy which is often infused anew by the presence of a child/ren. Maybe it, too, as you, needs new life breathed into it, having held the old for so long.
I am sorry for your loss.
Lovely write.
4th Oct 2019 9:36pm
Many thanks Ahavati, yes I agree memory's can attach themselves anywhere and older houses do seem to an unkown energy about them, thats a good observation, got me thinking
3rd Oct 2019 10:54pm
[q]Losing family is painful, but a severed link to childhood is barren by comparison and I fear one will compound the other; such a loss makes me tremble inside.[/q]
tied to your other pieces of loss (child, most specifically, also your father and mother), this sentence reads to me as the pivotal point, the balancing moment in time, a physical sensation where you are at the crux of tipping into despair. what follows is a dipping into that dark deep well but a reclaiming of equilibrium in order to be able to continue onwards. we all teeter at times, despair always greedy for our company.
so sorry for the burden of your losses; so pleased you have writing to help release the pressure of grief.
tied to your other pieces of loss (child, most specifically, also your father and mother), this sentence reads to me as the pivotal point, the balancing moment in time, a physical sensation where you are at the crux of tipping into despair. what follows is a dipping into that dark deep well but a reclaiming of equilibrium in order to be able to continue onwards. we all teeter at times, despair always greedy for our company.
so sorry for the burden of your losses; so pleased you have writing to help release the pressure of grief.
4th Oct 2019 9:39pm
you see it all butters :) many thanks for your considered reply. im long over the loss but i still miss them.
This was such an endearing story, I can relate to it completely as I remember leaving our childhood home after 23 years. I still see it in dreams and feel a part of me is still there. I wonder if the new owners can feel our history. Its a great story to write down so it will be remembered, great entry :)
