Dear Red Wooden House

Dear Red Wooden House,

I'll never see you again. The last time I left I thought I would come back at some point but I won't. Now the white walls inside of what used to be my bedroom will convey nothing of me to the next owner. I will be gone. I will be removed from the window I used to sit at, and the songs I used to sing will be nothing but an echo moving around with the dust particles. We will be dead skin. Gathering new dust in the glistening sun shining through the living room windows. We will be plastered holes, hearing stories and tales of people we will never meet.

You are the only thing I have kept with me since I left. You have traced my memories. You are a kind of giant structure that I used to see the world through. And now I can only see you through the memories I have of you.

You’re not even red anymore, I just remembered. You’re re grey. The colour changed five year ago, but I had already gone somewhere else then. I would come to visit, but you were different. Something had changed, and I think it was me, but you had gotten new double glazed windows so who knows.

I now see you though photos. A kind of last goodbye through the glimpse of a camera that can never quite capture who you used to be. I will move on, and so will you. You will shield someone else from the winter cold and feed them. I will be happy without you, I know it. Still, you hold my childhood within those walls. You hold my first steps, my falls and my laughter. Now I hold time in my hands and you’ve become the past. I feared growing up before, now I'm scares things won’t t last.