Leave Sisel Gelman
The door calls for me day and night.
The door haunts me day and night.
It’s the first thing I see when I wake up, and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed. To my mother, my bedroom door seems like any other—plain and wooden with a round metal door handle on the left side—but to me, well… I’ve seen its soul. It began on the first day of sixth grade when the door turned bright green. I was too afraid to start middle school the next day: I feared teachers who could give me bad grades and bullies who could laugh at my hair. I feared those unknown unknowns. I spent the entire night intermittently crying until, sometime around two in the morning, the door took on an eerie glow. The door frame pulsated a soft pine-green light that quickly grew into a blinding emerald hue. There was nothing I could do but lay in bed, petrified and in awe at the scene unfolding privately to me in the dark. I knew, wrapped under my sheets with dilated pupils, that the door was a sign I would be safe at school. I just knew it. I told my mother, and she told me I was making things up. I told her I wasn’t. My mother then picked up her keys and told me she was late for her job. That was my cue to shut up and keep this new knowledge to myself.
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