I'm looking at my ceiling. it's dark, so I can't see very much of it, but from the times I've stared at it in daylight, I know what to expect.
it's a simple ceiling, with popcorn finish and a ceiling fan in the middle, with blades that I painted myself. there's nothing special about my ceiling, but not very many people have stared at it like I have, even though I wasn't the first and I won't be the last.
houses are weird, that way.
they get passed on like secrets and torn down like egos, rebuilt like faces and made new like babies. they get looked at like paintings, and lived in like, well, houses.
so when I stare at the ceiling of my house, I can think of all the people who could stare at it later.
I can speculate how many years these walls will stand and shelter and look silently on at the happenings of the house without saying a word, without making a sound, without betraying the secrets of each occupant that they wish to keep within their own set of walls.
the walls we build on the inside are projected to the outside, and we treat them just the same. you have to ask to come in. you can only enter if I let you. I can do what I want in here, and you'll never know what it is.
it's nice to know that you can always keep secrets, even without meaning to. the walls will never talk. they're one less thing you have to worry about.
one day, I'll live in a house by myself and I won't have to keep secrets anymore, and I'll talk to the walls and ask if they have any secrets they're keeping, and keep an ear open for the answer. I can stare at the ceiling in every new house and wonder about all the eyes that have and will do what I'm doing.
I should put stars on my ceiling.
then, I can expand my wondering, as far as I'd like, because who hasn't looked up at the stars before? who hasn't pondered what's up there, far past our heads and our vision and our knowledge?
it's a wonderful feeling, asking about things you'll never really know the answer to, because you'll understand the unpredictability of it all, and it will cause you to wonder.
maybe I'm a bad person.
I'm hiding, and I'm doing it so well, hiding from all the things that could happen by wondering about them. I'd rather think about my future than tear my eyes away from the dullness of my ceiling and live it.
maybe I'm a bad person, because who complains about something they're not willing to change?
I've decided that I'm a bad person, which should have been obvious to me a long time ago but wasn't for some reason, probably because I never wondered about it.
there's lots of things that I could do about who I am, but I am really just too tired. there are too many variables and too many things that could go wrong, and I can control everything that's here in my mind, so this is where I would like to stay.
my walls shield me from the things I don't want to see, and I'm grateful for that. there are far too many things I wish to avoid.
you can't make me leave my walls and my ceiling and my mind, and I can't make myself leave, so I'm not sure where to go from here.
well, from here, my bed and my walls and my ceiling, I can go as many places as my mind can dream of, but that doesn't change that fact that I'm hiding and I'm running and I'm ruining so many things that could be good but will be bad if I never leave.
I desperately need things to be good, but I'm never willing to do the things that are good for me.
so I'll probably die here, alone with my bed and my walls and my ceiling, dreaming of a good life while I'm dying here in real life, unaware and ignorant and wondering, just like I am every other day, until I can't anymore.
I suspect that's how it will go.
and if I think about it long enough, maybe I can turn it into something good. maybe I can be the hero of these walls, and be the girl who was never happy but tricked everyone into thinking she was anyway.
or maybe it's all in my head and I'm not doing a good job of hiding after all.
but if i never leave this place, my bed and my walls and ceiling, I'll bet you won't know what I'm like anyway.
so maybe it'll all work out.
and maybe, if I think about it long enough, I really can turn it into something good.
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