Contelysia

I hold so much, yet I own so little. The laughs, the tears, the voices of those who once lived in me are absorbed by my walls — replayed in echoes, day after day. You have changed, haven't you? You won't crawl on the floor, reaching your hand for the bed to get up. Will you mark me with the memories? Draw on me those confused landscapes, where trees grew out of roofs and cows flew in the sky? Those sketches might be smudged by time, but the ink still seeps into me. It still makes me another fragment of who you used to be when you were free. Dolls with marker-streaked hair, stuffed dogs and bears darkened by dust, and a pile of storybooks stuffed in a shelf are all that remain to remind me of you. I remember the times you screamed at your mom to let you colour your hair, then I remember the nights she read you your favorite stories while you hugged her side softly. The stories were all that made your world before math and science overcrowded your head. That's when your toys ...