Childhood Bedroom

I finally cleaned my childhood bedroom

After all these years

All the dust is settling deep inside the dressers

And all the wars and horrors I've now accepted

Are now just years in the past

The ghost still haunts the bones of the house

But I am slowly getting rid of its grip on me.

I threw out the dead flowers

From Valentine's Day

From being in a play

From hurting myself once

I threw them all away, and with them my attachments

It felt symbolic in the moment

At least to me.

All the books I swore I'd read when I was eleven

Percy Jackson and Hamilton

Sonic and manga

All left untouched for the better part of a decade

They'll make someone else happy.

Years of trash I'd "throw out later"

Years of things I held onto "just a little longer"

Years of a person who is no longer me

Sitting idly in bags to be taken away

I am no longer myself

I am no longer the ghost

In the bones of these walls.

I think I'm okay with that, though

I like the new me

I'll keep some of her stuff safe and sound

But I am no longer the person who died in this room

And it's time to let her rest.