Captive Behind The Closed Doors

Doors open opportunities. They are a means for freedom…or are they? What if the doors in your life did not open?

*Trigger alert: graphic domestic violence

Creak! Creak! Creak!

Every time he makes his way to my door.

My heart thuds,

I cower, enveloped in a numb fear.

I bite into my clammy knuckles

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And draw my knees up to my chest

As I hear his tread on the steps.

Mouth dry, I swallow and

Scuttle to a corner of my bed

But,

Its threadbare mattress offers little comfort!

My eyes peer at the sliver of pale light

That seeps in from under the closed door.

I hope, against hope that he shall pass by,

That, his step shall not stop at my doorstep

Tonight.

But, his shadow comes to rest there.

It is not to be!

I hear the scrape of his foot against the door,

And then the door groans open

As if keening for me, bewailing my plight.

He stands there silhouetted

Against the bleak yellow patch of light.

I whimper.

I whisper, ‘No, please…no,’ for

I know what awaits me.

I have no escape.

I am a captive of depraved lust

That shackles me to the shadows of the night.

I am a prisoner of impotent hope

That shuns me, night after night

As I suffer the snuffing of my innocence,

Time after time,

Every single time.

Night after night he lurches in

In his alcohol induced stupor,

Leering.

He comes now too, grinning malevolently.

The door bangs shut!

And like every night the sound echoes

In the deathly stillness, like an ominous peal.

I shiver.

A trickle of moonlight filters in,

Cloaking the room.

It comes to rest on the closed door.

It too cannot pass, held captive as it is like me.

I hate the closed door.

But more than that…

I hate my life behind the closed door.

*

Author’s note – Doors open opportunities. They are a means for freedom…or are they? What if the doors in your life did not open? What if they were shut, leaving you defenseless, imprisoning you?

Sadly, there are many young innocent girls who lose their childhood to such closed doors. In their lives the door does not stand for freedom or hope. Rather, it stands for confinement and defilement.

This poem is dedicated to such survivors.

First published here.

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