I want to dedicate this to a place that I use to love. A place I use to spend all my time at. A place that I called home. It wasn’t in the arms of a boyfriend or in the company of a friend. I was alone. I used to be alone.

Now I miss it. I miss the smell of the summer. I miss the feeling of being in a small place but with such big possibilities. I miss the heat that told me about summer. Every time I woke up, I invited the sun inside. I got a bit of the summer so I could keep it with me. As a memory. As a reminder of what I had.

I don’t wanna forget the place I loved. I wanna love it again, being there and have the feelings back.

I remember the spot I use to own. I remember the chair I use to sit in. I remember what it was that kept me there. I knew I was safe. I thought I knew.

The worst part is that I watched the place fall apart. I stood there looking right at it. I wish I was inside. I wish I could smell the air for the last time and take one last look out the window. But all I could smell was the black smoke and the last look I got was the flames tearing the walls apart from the ground and the roof came down with it. The fire took the house down, piece by piece. The memories were too strong so they stayed. They still do.

I remember how it never got boring to be there. Mondays weren’t even boring. They were grey, but still open for discovery. And when it rained, I went outside trying to catch the drops. Being a real child. A normal child, even though I lived with a complete stranger because everyone else died. It was hard to be normal when your life looks like that.

I should’ve known something was up. No one have a perfect childhood. I almost had. The way I thought “perfect” was. I had company when I wanted to, but I was mostly alone. I got to see the best things in life. Just by living in that house.

I remember the day I arrived. It was cold and windy, but the sun showed its face behind the clouds. Just like the sun hid behind the clouds, I hid behind sorrow. It was my excuse for being as I was.

I went exploring around the rooms. I was looking for a place to cry. I had so many possibilities. Lots of corners and many places with a spot where shadows threw itself at. Almost too many places I could use.

I stayed with it. Every day. I loved it as a child loves toys. Loves other children. Loves everything else. I just loved being in the house. I loved the feeling of being complete with the surroundings.

The stranger who owned the house, was an old author. She spent all her time writing. She was just as happy about being alone as I was. It was strange how the two of us could get along. I read some of her work, and for me, that was my school. She taught me about writing and made me believe that it was the only way a child should be treated. Life hasn’t exactly been kind to me.

I was never afraid of the house. I never found it overwhelming with the unknown. I was just a sad little girl who wore a dress, looking like a presentable little lady from a nice family. Too bad that fine family past away. That’s what my past was like back then. I had my memories. Just like I have now. What scares me, is that the memories that I have now, the pictures of the flames tearing up my greatest happiness, that’s even worse thinking back to than the memories of my family dying. With such a past, that should’ve been the worst. But that house meant the world to me.

And no, I can’t just live somewhere else. I didn’t just see it as a place I ate dinner in, yelled to – my non-existing mom – and watched all the fairytales happen on the other side of the window. The fairytales were on the inside. Because I made them become fairytales. I saw the normal things as a miracle that needed to be advanced to the point where only my fantasy could follow the rules. My pretty little mind and brain had no part of what I today remember as my best times.

It didn’t take long for every part in me felt like home there. Not just my heart loved it. My soul enjoyed the laughter, my body enjoyed the sun, my brain enjoyed the challenges of the adventure and so on.

But happiness didn’t go on.

I told myself I’d always be the same. I said that I’d stay. That I’d always stay. But I broke that promise.

I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen. I was a dreamer who thought reality was my past but now I got to live my dream. But it was always reality. The dream was the thought I had.

My soul was in there. That’s what happens when you tear a girl apart from her home. It stays there and leaves the girl empty.  

I have memories that I’d love to forget. But if I forgot, I wouldn’t understand a single thing about reality. I feel like I live in the past. I keep thinking about what happened back then. I keep remembering what hurt me. I remember the bad things. They were so easy to believe, because of how many times I saw it.

For me, the rest of the world was dangerous. It was where I lost my family, and I trusted nobody. But in that house I trusted the air. I trusted the sky. I trusted God who gave me a home.

But some of them I didn’t trust, stepped on my territory. They lit the fire that my memories burned in. The books the author wrote vanished by the flames, and I still try, everyday, putting the words together and find the melody she made.

Sitting here, looking at flat land where the house used to be is hard. I can still smell it. The memories are there. It’s in the air. It’s everywhere I go. And I can’t let them go.

I want to go back to where I was. Living that life. But children move away from home when they grow up. I grew up and now I don’t have to move away from home, it moved away from me. It was taken away from me.

And now… I’m just waiting for them to give it back. ‘Cause I can’t live without it. I was there to stay, and I'm not letting go.