things i love

the other day i was talking to my little sister about going away for university. she said she will miss me and i said i'll miss her as well, but then she asked me if she'll be able to have my bedroom once i leave. i said over my dead body. she said that was creepy, but it's true! she may only be 6 years old, but she knows better than anyone how much time i've spent/wasted in here. she also knows how difficult it's going to be for me once i have to leave it. how am i supposed to fit each figure, each old teddy, each spine-worn or untouched book, into a shitty uni room? into a room that has already been endowed with the belongings of tens of thousands of people before me? i suppose your bedroom really is a reflection of your mind. i can use cute, pastel-coloured things to haze out whatever troubles i have. but when you take those things away, what remains is dull and grey and thickly caked in dust. but the view i see outside my window is the same as every 17 year old girl's in the country. just a blank sheet of paper, and spindly branches stretch across like ink spills, scrawled with uncertainty onto the page. i'm in the wrong, because i don't have the courage to step outside, to dye those pages with watercolour, with the 'ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being.' the page will just pill, be soaked through, collapse and turn to mush. i'd much rather just stay inside. then i won't know what i'm missing out on.