nothing else but my heart's desire [COLLECTION] | FINISHED

Dishes - ORIGINAL PROSE

I'm always washing dishes, it never seems to stop. I'm always a guide for younger versions of myself. Those who came after me, they look to me for support, as my support beams are threatening to splinter and crack. My self is splintered, shattered across time, as pieces of me linger in moments left behind. Moments I long for, short periods of my life, spent with those I love, replayed often in my mind. I'm left with memories of better times ahead, until I reach the age of twenty four, as my peers are married, with children of their own to nurture and take care of. I still feel as though I'm eleven years old, though I look around and find my brother has grown up before my eyes, no longer a young child, all while I wonder where time had fled to and why it has left me behind. I'm always suffering with aches and pains, as my back feels sore and my mind feels numb, with this throbbing pressure in my skull, of unknown origin. When my siblings cry, when my mother cries when she thinks no one is looking, I feel, still, an ache in my soul, unsure what to do and where to go, searching for an adult to take care of the mess left behind, never realising my own potential as I am chained to my pain, my bed a prison of my own design, wishing to grow up but never grow old, never wishing to leave my room but always hoping to escape one day. One day came and went, suddenly I haven't returned home in many years, but the childhood bedroom I recalled so distinctly is nowhere to be seen, has not existed in many years, and the home my family calls home has never been my home, it has become another memory to lose myself in, as I dream such vivid dreams and wake again, washing dishes to clean, to distract, to lose myself still in the beauty of practical solutions and healthy distraction. I am washing dishes, and will always wash dishes, because this is all I know. I am still unsure if it feels right, to wash dishes because it is all I have ever done, or because it is all I will ever do.