Musings of a Divorcee

I haven’t been able to sleep in my bedroom for months, favoring the sofa… that’s if I even sleep at all. 

Every now and again, I stand at the door of it, on the perimeter surveying the state of it. 

Eerie

Stale

Ransacked

The blackout curtains, drawn for who knows how long. Slithers of natural light peak into the dim room. Only 2 of the 3 bulbs in the ceiling light lit.

Mounds of clothing, the dirty, lightly worn, laundered all intermingled on the floor, topped on the rocking chair, or heaped on the bed. 

The bed… feels improper to refer to it as mine. I haven’t possessed it in ages. And the memories of a time when I did, I want to scrub away as deeply as I need to with this space. 

My dresser covered with uncapped perfumes, damn near empty lotion bottles, cheap and turned hoop earrings. All once beautifully arranged, now a byproduct of transactional use.

Momentos from moments I barely remember slid into the frame of a dusty mirror. I’m sentimental which feels hard in here.

My altar, a nod to a new moon ritual long passed. Dried herbs and flowers, a scattering of things that hardly feel like tributes now.

The room, It’s otherworldly, a multi-verse – haunted… I am in and outside of myself here. 

I hear the echoes of passing conversations during morning routines or late night pillow talk. Or is it that I feel that embrace or lingering caresses on my long untouched skin, goosebumps like it was yesterday? Or worse, the loud silence of the distant nights with our backs to each other and curled tightly into ourselves.

To be dispossessed from a space I once thought as mine, as sacred…

Each time, I exit the room, leaving those screaming memories calling to my back as I retire to the sofa yet another night.