There's not a day that I don't remember.

Before I sleep there's always this insufferable longing that pulls at my seams and attempts to take me into that otherworld. Every night it's the same, grasping my own thoughts, pushing them back, locking them up and shutting all of the doors until not a sound can be heard from them.

It's always the blue door first, with the large golden handle. It's the prettiest by far; perfect as the day it was made. It looks like it's never been touched, nor seen the sun. There are no smears, no faded spots, only deep blue perfection. The door of my first home, the one we barely lived in. I shouldn't call it home, not really. That's not what it was. It was just a house, only lived in for three days before we had to run again.

Next is the plain wooden door with a handle of worn wood, wearing away gradually with use. It's nothing spectacular, just a door that I remember in a place that I haven't been to in a long time. School. I didn't like school, but I liked the people. There was always someone there who was smiling. It may not have been for the right reasons but smile they did.

The cream paint is peeling from the third door; it has no lock, just a hole where a handle used to be. It's harder to close than the first two, the hinges are slightly rusted and definitely in need of oil. I don't remember where it's from or how it got here but somehow I know I must have it, keep it and cherish it as with the others.

The glass is shattered; all that's left is the frame. The fourth door is drafty and revealing, it was a back door. A brick went through it, a big red brick. Then we left again. Out into the world again with our tails between our legs for no reason I could see. I didn't understand, not back then.

The fifth wasn't really a door at all, just a piece of wood placed over the gap where the door used to be. The shed was cold, falling to bits and we couldn't all fit inside. But we tried. We all knew we couldn't stay there forever, even though for some reason we wanted to. I would look back one day and think about it and wonder what the hell we were thinking. But that was then, not now, now I know things that hadn't happened then.

When we got to the final stop, I thought we'd be fine. I thought that nothing else could go wrong that hadn't already. But then there was the sixth door, the last door, the door that I stared at when I couldn't sleep. The final door. All burnt up, charred and tortured. Just like the house it came from and the people who lived in it.

There's not a day that I don't remember and not a night where I don't study the doors, closing them one by one in the silence. My ritual.




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- Chimes Portfolio 2