bad dreams, wrong doors

three doors, the first one boarded up, the second one cracked, and someone slumped by the third. i thought about the patience it takes to die beside a door that could have gone anywhere and how many choices led up to this one. walls covered in the same handwriting that looks like mine, it looks like i’ve tried to make it out of here before. maybe the only way to make it out alive is to open the doors. eenie meenie miney moe, which door haven’t i opened before? the third, where someone who looks like me sits dead against a wall, opens with a creak, the choice has been made for me. the air is heavy with the weight of the elephant in the room. who is going to break first me or you? somewhere in the darkness a child cries, a door slams, and a car engine rumbles to life. sometimes i wish i still thought of you as a human being instead of a nightmare locked away in a room i know i cannot escape from. sometimes i wonder what it would be like to see you smile when you said you loved me, sometimes i wish i remembered what it was like. a locked box of memories that never existed sits in the corner begging me to open it, but only you have the key. the questions scribbled on the walls remain unanswered, and i know i chose the wrong door.