True Confessions From My Closet

Mantra by Lisa Olivera

I spent most of yesterday in the closet.

Hours at a time, I sat huddled in the corner beneath the hanging clothes, my head resting against the wall. Or folded in on myself, sandwiched in the little space between piles of clutter, where I had to put a small pillow behind me to keep the clutter from poking me in the back. And once, with my back against the door, my head resting on my legs, snot dripping onto my sweats. Always with the light off. 

Where the idea originally came from, I don’t know. 

The first time, I was a child, maybe 8 years old and I slid my closet door open and crawled inside and underneath the shelf in the corner and I took my blanket and my teddy with me and I eventually fell asleep, after all my feelings were spent. 

It became a regular occurrence after that, crawling into the safety of a closet, in the dark where I am the only critic of my feelings and the only savior of myself. Whenever I was sad or mad or overwhelmed or if I wanted to disappear, the safety of my closet was where I would go. 

Hidden in the darkness I feel safe to really feel everything I have to feel and to feel it raw and unfiltered, unrestrained, unjudged.

There is no one to stare at me blankly or turn away when the tears begin to fall. 

There is no one there to hurt me.

In the closet it is just me and my truth, my body and my aches and I can soothe myself through the things that feel like too much to feel. 

In the dark closet, I bear witness to myself and I can disappear.