Amy Blue

If walls could talk I would have told you there was someone listening. I would have told you to take the extra time off of work. I would have told you not to leave your phone in that same place on the counter everytime you take a shower.

Boarded, broken and remolded the cracks of my soul don’t know time. But they know the souls of those who wander through me better than those who wander with them. I have the misfortune of knowing everyone as well as they know themselves. I see how they change from person to person, from times of many, to moments of solitude. But mostly I can see their range of truth. Most make up little lies, the best ones do, the worst lay on extremes between too much truth and far too little. But one painful truth I have come to know is most of those who wander stray far from who they lead people to believe they are.

My structural sentence has been a rather long one, longer than those who come and go. There have been 7 families since my sentience, they speak about the coast, the atlantic ocean, and long snows. My favorites covered me with paper and fresh paint in every room, they danced often and filled the halls with candles. They were the ones who almost seemed sweeter in their solitude, filled every crowded room with ease and laughter, and imbued each private conversation with sincerity.

But these are not the ones I would choose to speak to, if I could speak I would speak to you, Amy Blue. I never particularly liked you but I never hated you either. You were rather simple as a child, you were mean and quiet. You used to pinch the dog when your parents weren’t looking, and once you stole a bracelet from your Aunt June's purse. But as you grew you got less mean but never quite grew out of your taste for silence. When your parents tried to talk with you it always seemed like a useless endeavor. Maybe it was because you didn’t really do much and you didn’t have a lot of interests. I think overall I just found you rather bland.

I’ve watched people fall in and out of love. I have seen some lie to love two, to end up loving neither. I have seen tired relationships that are tender and tired lovers that wear each other down to rusted shapeless things. I have seen women filled with light whittled away into bitterness by ignorance and lack of empathy from absent husbands. But their spirits move through me like winds of grace; gentle whispers that flutter and get diffused into a warmness that lives between me, swimming throughout the space. But you Amy Blue ring through me like a scream, a tortured grief that weighs heavy on my support beams that give a creaking sound to an empty house.

When you first started bringing Jason around his anxious insecurities bounced him around rooms in the absences of others; looking into things that weren’t his. He was charming around your parents; was pleasant and pulled you into conversations with them in a way your parents liked. It was the most they had ever talked to you. When the two of you were alone he talked to you like you were a thing of his dreams, something to fill the items of his imagination. At first I think you liked the way he made all those plans, about you and him in a little blue house. You would live in the country with 5 kids, all of their names starting with the letter B. You liked how it seemed so quaint when he talked about you staying home all day, making sourdough from scratch and teaching the kids their ABC’s.

But the more he talked the more I think you realized you never thought. You never thought about what your life should be like or what you wanted from it. Arguments started piling up larger than the ones of old clothes resting within me. You couldn’t go out with your friends, and if you stayed home you were spending too much time alone. He didn’t like the clothes you wore or when you let your hair hang around your face. That person your parents had come to know had left and started shrinking back into something smaller than who you were before. The more Jason knew you the less you could fit into the molded object of his mind. His insecurities that used to live in his isolation started seeping into conversations.

Jason could see you Amy Blue slipping from that narrow space he tried to fit you in. I watched his charm turn to panic and desperate attempts at solutions. In my time I have come to accept that I cannot change the things around me, but I wish I could change what happened to you, Amy Blue. I have learned that my power of knowing is not power at all. What am I without expression? The only purpose I serve are the ones that Jason wished for you.

I would have told you that your pregnancy was not an accident. I would have told you about the hole in aluminum wrapping. When you told him to leave, that a life with him was not one you dreamed, I was proud. I watched as Jason’s plan and desperate attempt at control collapsed in on itself. As everything fell apart the destruction of Jason's dreams created something ominously perceptive in me. Both of us used as your stomach grew, wires carefully placed within my frame, for the first time someone could see what I saw but held with the power of change. Jason had turned into an object without ambivalence, what a scary thing to be.

I watched your nervous pacing and many failed attempts to tell your parents. I watched you practice in the mirror and give yourself pep talks. But your parents were supportive and the closer your due date became the more excited they were to meet little Adaline. You were a young mother but it was the first time I saw you take an interest in anything. I could see you connect with your parents more; family dinners were filled with laughter.

Adaline grew quickly, it wasn’t long before she was walking. I started to forget that Jason was watching your every move, nothing had changed, until it seemed like it did all at once. It started with you talking on the phone every night with someone. One night when everyone was sleeping the lock on the back door clicked and then slowly creeped open. It was dark and the figure was hunched over and lanky, stepping sideways up the stairs slowly. They paused at the top of the stairs like they had heard something, or maybe just to catch their breath. They started reaching their hand behind their back to grab something. I tried to muster anything I could, any effect I could possibly have but it was no use. Before I could see what was behind their back Adaline scurried out of bed and into your room. As Adaline passed by, the stranger ducked around the corner closer to your parents room. She woke you up asking if she could sleep with you. A long moment passed before the stranger dared move again. They crept back down the stairs and out the way they came.

This kept happening over and over with more frequency. I guessed that it was Jason, but it was hard to tell. The person who came to the house always wore a baseball cap with a bandana covering their face. If it was Jason he had turned into somewhat of a skeleton. Jason had muscle and always seemed healthy, he always cared way too much about his appearance. This person was thin and lanky and looked like they were covered in a thin layer of dirt. But they always came when you were alone, and that was something only Jason could know.

Once they came and just stood over Adaline while she slept in her room. If I could talk I would have screamed, but only the old boards of the house creaked. Once I swear you almost heard my pleas; you were walking up the stairs as he tiptoed behind you, and you turned to look just as they slipped out of sight. All the might I mustered was the settling sounds of an old house. At least that is what your parents told Adaline.

But as time went on they started getting bolder. The closest they ever got was one day when you were standing in the kitchen alone they crept up behind you twisting a rope tight between their hands. They were a couple feet away when your phone rang. I could see them wonder if they were close enough to get to you before you picked up the phone. I wasn’t sure if they would try it, but as you answered the phone and turned to lean against the counter. They moved and backed out the door at an even pace, as quickly as they came.

After that they were gone for a while biding their time, watching your routines. Noticing all the things about you I always did. Noticing how you never clean up the kitchen until after you finish eating, how in the afternoon you always take tea outside, and how you always leave your phone in the kitchen when you shower. Things that used to be just mine to see became perverted by their ability to act, having the privilege to speak, the only thing I wished for, the stranger couldn’t bother. I would have told you.

One day you and Adaline were in the living room, she was on the floor playing pretend while the tv played your curated make believe. Your parents walked in, your mom sat down next to you and your dad sat in the chair. They wanted to go visit your Aunt June, and wanted to plan a trip. Your Aunt June had just bought a house right next to a warm sandy beach. None of you had seen her since your mom’s 40th birthday a few years back.

You wanted to go but you couldn’t afford to take that much time off of work and your parents wanted to stay for at least a week. The three of you decided you would all go out together, but you would just stay for the weekend. You would fly back while Adaline stayed there with your parents the rest of the week. The thought of being away from Adaline for that long didn’t sit right with you at first. The longer you sat with the idea though, with some reassurance from your parents, the better you felt about the whole thing. You liked the idea of some long deserved alone time.

Time passed without much incident and you and your family left for your trip. While you were gone the spaces between me got quiet. Long stretches of silence were normally peaceful but this time it felt like something that couldn’t be relaxed into. Silence and emptiness are things you learn to love, if it's for long enough it's almost like you're nothing. The ring of nothing leaves me everything left to be. Wood peels back from rusted nails and silence settles dust. The beauty of an empty room is the space where you can place your dreams. The truly abandoned are the truly free, dream’s given up and dreams forgotten; are the objected left to live for their own reason.

Any peace left to be had was taken by the newfound duality of my perception. The electrical buzzing served as a constant reminder. I was a part of a body that I couldn’t feel and couldn’t seem to control. The only purpose I served of privacy and protection were now useless. I wish I could have told you.

When you came home Amy Blue they were already waiting. They had gotten there a few hours before you pacing around looking through things in the house. Eventually they sat on the kitchen floor next to a mostly empty cupboard. They heard a car door slam shut, they curled up inside the cupboard and pulled the door closed behind them. When you walked through the door you had the lightest sunburn, your hair hung down around your face. You seemed tired but in a good way as you threw your backpack on the couch, and kicked off your flip flops far from the doorway because you forgot.

You walked into the kitchen plugging your phone into the outlet and resting your arms on the counter. You stood there for a long time talking to your parents and listening to Adaline babbling on the phone. After that you called Jay, the guy you were talking to when they started coming to the house. You guys had been talking pretty often you didn’t hang out much though, you were so busy with Adaline. You were making plans to go out to dinner that night, it would be you and Jay's first real date.

But you would never get to go out on that date, you would never get to see Adaline grow, and you would never end up getting that place of your own. When you went upstairs they crawled out of the cabinet and unplugged your phone. They looked through your messages and photos from your trip, hovering over the ones of Adaline. They canceled the date you had with Jay so the next people who would be home would be your parents.

They crept up the stairs and opened the bathroom door. You were singing in the shower and steam had already started to fog up the mirror. They waited for you there on the other side of the shower curtain while you washed your hair. They waited there for you to turn off the water. Once you did, they ripped back the shower curtain. It was a struggle from there and was too fast to notice one particular thing. But when the shower curtain ripped back you screamed, your scream still echoes through me. You fought and you slipped and by then it was over, there was already a bag around your head.

I will save you a repeat of the worst gory details that came afterward. But I did want to let you know that it was your parents and not Adaline who found you there. But telling you everything that came after seems useless anyways. If I could have told you anything at all none of this would have gone this way. Looking back I don’t know if taking that extra time off and staying for the whole trip would have done much of anything. Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten the chance and you would have moved out with Adaline first. Maybe if you would have brought your phone to the bathroom you could have called for help during the struggle. But all of this seems so useless now, the what if’s, the things I could have told you. I watched your whole life pass by but somehow it seems like you’re here. Your parents moved out shortly after and now I sit here dreamless. But the violence brought upon you here leaves me little peace. But after all this is only if walls could talk, and if they could talk they would have been listening.