The Red Bricked House With the White Picket Fence

 Hello! 

This poem is probably the most personal poem I've written. I wrote it mainly as a little bit of therapy for myself. It's about a previous relationship that I was in when I was younger that was really unhealthy. I was treated really really badly by this person and that had a knock-on effect on lots of areas of my life. 

Understandably I find this topic really hard to talk about and I feel a little anxious to post this one. But, the few people that I've shared this poem with already have given me some really positive feedback and said that it could help people. So, this is me biting the bullet. 

If you can relate to any of the experiences in this poem, please know that you're not alone. It's not your fault and you don't deserve it. It does get easier and you will get through it. I believe in you. 

I will leave some resources at the end of this post for anyone who may need them. 

T/W: Abuse, sexual assualt, toxic relationship and manipulation. 

I once lived in a red bricked house with a white picket fence that stood tall and smart in a street by itself

 I lived there with the boy I used to love

We moved in in the September

All eager eyed opening doors to explore rooms filled with new adventures

Our young love bloomed in our new house

But not in the way the flowers bloom in spring, no

Our love bloomed the way blood blooms on a fingertip when you prick it with a pin

Yet I still picked the roses with my bare hands and held them tight

Didn’t they ever tell you that the thorns blooming red down your wrists make the blooming red in your fists smell oh so nice?

 

Every morning, I’d water the daises in our garden and watch as he picked off every petal and played the game we used to play as children

I love her

I love her not

I love her

I love her not

Except nobody told me the rules get re-written when you grow up

And after he left our flower-beds scattered with broken stems

He would put down our watering can, take my hands and say

‘You can’t leave our garden in such a mess this way’

 

Inside our red bricked house with the white picket fence was a hallway filled with mirrors

Every afternoon, we would walk down the hall and stop in front of each one

He would watch my adoring eyes in the glass staring back into his

and then smash each mirror with his bare fist

I would pick up every broken piece and put it back in place

And at the end of the hall, he would turn around and hold my blooming hands and say

‘you

Are beautiful’

 

Every night after dinner we’d go upstairs

He’d cover our bed in the loose petals he’d picked off that morning and stare proudly at his handiwork

I’d wonder why he chose to go to all the trouble of placing petals on our bed when he could have just left them in the garden instead

Besides

They weren’t even roses anyway

He’d lay me down on our bed of daises and push himself inside of me

And all the while I’d stare at the ceiling

Trying to find feeling

Trying to feel

Something

And I’d pick up each petal and play my favourite game in my head

He loves me

He loves me not

He loves me

He loves me not

 

Some nights i wouldn’t want to do our bedtime routine

I’d want to just curl under our covers and make myself so small I couldn’t be seen

But he’d always pull our duvet back and say ‘look at the petals I picked out just for you’

So i’d lay down on our bed of daisies and he’d push himself inside of me

And all the while I’d stare at the ceiling

Trying to lose feeling

Trying to feel

Nothing

He loves me not

 

We went on like this

My love and me 

Until one morning in July

I didn’t water our garden

I packed a suitcase instead

I walked the hallway and looked at my broken reflection for the last time whilst he let petals pick his feelings

I left the red bricked house with the white picket fence and as I looked back at it from outside

I saw that the white paint was chipped in more places than one and the bricks were more brown than red

I left the red bricked house with the white picket fence standing alone and lonely in the street by itself

 

I live in a one bedroom apartment now

The girl I love lives next door but she comes to visit me most days

We watch my flowers bloom in my garden and when my mirror breaks she wipes the blooming red from my hands and holds them tight and says

‘You

Are beautiful’

She doesn’t need to place petals on my bed but when she does

They’re always roses

We lie together and sometimes we touch and sometimes I just look into her eyes but either way I always feel

Something

Without having to try

 

I still wake up in cold sweats sometimes

Still remember his face staring down onto mine

The hunger taking over the humane in his eyes

And I wonder

When the day will come that I won’t recognise that face anymore

They say that human beings shed their skin so often that it only takes seven years before every single one of your skin cells will be brand new

Maybe I’ll always remember his face

But one day I will have a body that he will never have touched 

Resources for the UK 

- National Domestic Abuse Helpline - https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/ - 0808 2000 247

- The Survivors Trust - https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org/

- NO MORE - https://uksaysnomore.org/

- Rape Crisis for England and Wales - https://rapecrisis.org.uk/

- Rape Crisis Scotland - https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/

- Rape Crisis Northern Ireland - https://rapecrisisni.org.uk/

- Rape Crisis Network Ireland - https://www.rcni.ie/

International Resources 

- US - RAINN - https://www.rainn.org/

Canada - List of centres by location - https://casac.ca/anti-violence-centres/

Aus - Reach Out - https://au.reachout.com/articles/sexual-assault-support

Follow me on Instagram 

Personal Account - @caitlinengland

Queer Education Account - @raisingqueervoices_