I Was the One Who Locked the Door

For years I thought someone else did it.

The door in my mind.
The one I could never open.
The one marked with foggy memories, voices that cut off mid-sentence,
a feeling like I’d been sent to the wrong timeline by mistake.

I blamed my parents.
The school.
The part of the world that tells you which pieces of yourself don’t belong in public.

But last night, I dreamed I was holding the key.
Not finding it.
Holding it.

I saw myself younger.
Not innocent, just scared.
Tired of explaining the same thing over and over.
So I turned the lock.
My own hand.
My own silence.

It was me.

I buried the version of myself that felt too heavy for everyone else.
Told them to wait.
Told them “not now.”
Told them we’d come back when it was safer.

Years later, I kept checking the door
like maybe someone else was responsible for the forgetting.

But no.

I wrote the silence.
I filed it under survival.

Plot twist?
I wasn’t haunted.
I was hiding.

And I think…
I’m ready to open it now.