Kaviru Samarawickrama
I’m a closet smoker, a closet drinker, a closet abuser.
I destroy the precious purpose of a closet.
I shall now forge a new purpose.
A closet sanctuary.
No clothes could hide my insecurities.
No lipstick or eyeliner could hide my pain.
Yes, my den is a closet.
When I was 8,
I hid from my imaginary cop that was to handcuff me,
for stealing the apples from my grandmother’s refrigerator.
I hid inside a closet.
When I was 12,
I was playing hide and seek with my sister one night,
I hid behind a closet in my mother’s room,
Where I learnt that my father and mother slept on the same bed.
I truly regret that moment.
When I was 16,
The popular girls at school tried to bully me.
I wished I was inside a closet.
When I was halfway through with being 16,
I spoke to the very first boy on a smart phone.
My parents convinced me and my sister, phones were for older and behaved children.
I was the wild child. My sister was the ‘I will go and tell mommy’ child.
I hid between the gap of the wall and cupboard.
The walls threw back the echoes of my sweet voice rambling on about what type of boys I liked.
My sister heard me and told on me and I wasn’t allowed a phone for eternity.
At least that’s what my mother said.
When I was 18,
I borrowed my father’s whiskey bottle and hid inside the closet and spoke to a boy.
More like stole but we are in the same household so I prefer to say I borrowed.
A step up, I presumed.
I drunk cut myself that day accidentally with the wine glass.
Yes you heard me right I drank whiskey from a wine glass.
When I was 19,
I found out just before carving my one sided lover’s name on the wooden closet,
I had done the exact same thing when I was 17 years old, with a different boy’s name.
I painted over both names when I became 20.
I am 22 now,
The bottom left hand side of the closet is filled with three boxes filled with old memories, not clothes.
So I could take them out and put them back in whenever my parents chose to barge in.
I visit the closet sometimes.
The closet, a small space adequate for my size still; I’m a 4.11 now.
It is a flashback of the times I cried, the times I hid and the times I celebrated on my own.
Sometimes the torch was the only light I knew in the darkness.
It saw me when no one else saw me.
I spoke a lot with an imaginary friend.
He is dead and forgotten now. I guess he roams around still hoping I would remember him.
I’m a closet smoker, a closet drinker, a closet abuser.
I destroy the precious purpose of a closet.
I shall now forge a new purpose.
A closet sanctuary
No clothes could hide my insecurities.
No lipstick or eyeliner could hide my pain.
Yes, my den is a closet.
That small space adequate for my size.
