Content Advisory
This poem touches on family conflict and childhood distress.
Aporia publishes imaginative writing. The voices in our contributors' work are literary personae, and should not be read as statements about the writer's own life.
When the noise got loud,
and loved ones cried,
when every scream
felt trapped inside,
I'd close my eyes,
pretend I couldn't see,
as if not looking
could set me free.
And when the voices
wouldn't end,
I'd hold my pillow,
my only friend.
I'd cry till morning,
through the night,
until the darkness
turned to light.
The pillow wet,
as if washed clean—
but water
was nowhere to be seen.
It held the tears
of a little girl,
too scared to face
the world.
She didn't know
what she was hiding from,
or that those nights
would somehow become
the memories
she'd carry someday,
the kind of fear
that never fades away.
I still remember
the ways she'd hide—
running upstairs,
then staying inside.
Behind the curtains,
out of sight,
that old cupboard
felt safe at night.
Her favourite place,
her safest wall,
her little world
inside it all.
She thought that hiding
kept her whole,
not knowing
what it did to her soul.
Now I have grown,
but things remain—
the same old fights,
the same old pain.
I still see them,
I still see her cry,
but now I don't
just shut my eyes.
I try to fix it,
try every way,
to make the noise
and hurting stay away.
I try to make
everything alright,
but some things
aren't mine to fight.
So I still cry
when comes the night,
just like that girl
who feared the light.
I hide my tears,
my fear, my scars,
the things I carry
behind closed doors.
Because I've grown up,
or so they say—
but growing older
doesn't take it away.
I'm still that girl
who learned to hide,
who kept her fear
deep inside.
Only now,
I don't run upstairs.
I don't hide behind
curtains or chairs.
I just lie awake
and let the tears fall—
because I'm grown up now,
but they never grew
at all.
