By Kathryn Crawford
The opening of the door
unsealed the time trapped inside.
Standing on the precipice of entry,
their heads spun towards
an unfamiliar me
who left them behind.
I thought I would feel something
standing here in this room.
Betrayal stricken faces,
backs worn; muscles deformed.
A body does not grow in confinement.
With the swinging of the door, their bodiless souls
found the one whom abandoned them.
As they passed through,
I felt their sorrow,
like a sailor’s wife shivering atop the widow’s walk,
waiting for her husband,
the sea would never return.
Does time keep score
of a life spent.
The hands that pulled the door,
trapping every version of me that
grew between these walls,
are the same hands,
seven years later,
that set them free.
Kathryn Crawford grew up surrounded by moving boxes waiting to be filled. Having never had a permanent place to call home, Kathryn often found herself searching for the next escape. Always looking for a way out, she discovered that time would remove all traces of her. To not be erased, she began to write. Writing, for Kathryn, is a means of remembrance. For her, putting pen to paper is the only way to hold onto the many lives lived. Poetry and creative non-fiction have acted as a channel through which she can document the person she’s been and know that evidence of her life exists.
