Close The Door On Your Way Out

I've never heard a phrase with more ambiguous implications.

No doubt you want the door closed for privacy. Why else?

For pet peeve? Oh honey, don't lie to me.

Privacy. Of course. But why do you feel the need for it?

Is it that you do not want me to witness what you do behind closed doors?

Because you don't trust me. Or else you don't trust yourself.

Is it that you know you are fragile and you don't want me to see you shatter?

Because you don't want me to know that you're weak.

But I know anyway. I know you cry when the door is closed. I hear you.

Soft tears are silent. It is violent weeping that can be heard through solid wood.

I know you shatter every time that door closes, and then you sweep up your tiny pieces, melt them back together with scalding coffee and cover the seams with a turtleneck

before it opens again.

I know the truth. So you need not hide it from me.

Perhaps it is not me you hide from. Could it be yourself?

The you that is outside of yourself is not afraid of confrontation and so she confronts you.

She stands on the other side of that door and she beckons to you.

And you want to understand that thing she keeps talking about...freedom, is it?

You want to understand how it feels.

But you are also jealous of her, so furiously envious.

You hate that you don't have what she has but you tell yourself that you hate her.

So you slam the door in her face.

Because then her radiant countenance won't tempt you. Then if she speaks to you,

you can tell yourself it's all in your head.

But this will be your undoing, because you'll have internalized what you think that you hate,

and you can't escape your mind.

Maybe I could help you. Maybe if I just didn't close the door next time. . .

That way I wouldn't enable your self-destruction.

That way I could stand behind the you that is outside of yourself,

so that when you convince yourself that it's all in your head, you'd see right through her and

you'd see me.

And because I am your daughter you might not slam the door in my face.

And I could say the same things that she does,

but because you love me you might listen.

And if you listened, you would hear

the truth. And the truth would set you free.

So tonight, when I fail once again to comfort you and

free you from your self-destructive self --

and you send me away and tell me to close the door on my way out --

this time I will not do what you say.

You will do what I say.

And when you've done it, you'll thank me.

Because when you've done it, you'll be free.