Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors Poetry by Brittainy Cherry & Kandi Steiner Copyright © 2023 Kandi Steiner and Brittainy Cherry Copyright (C) 2022 Kandi Steiner and Brittainy CherryAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law. Published by Brittainy Cherry Edited by Elaine York/Allusion Publishing (http://www.allusionpublishing.com) Cover Art & Poetry Art by Steph Rose (https://www.stephrosetattoos.com/) Cover Design by Kandi SteinerFormatting by Tina Stokes Contents Title Page Copyright More from Brittainy Cherry More from Kandi Steiner About the Authors. Meet the Artist. Dear Reader, A few years ago, we came together to create a poetry collection that showcased the ins and outs of our emotions. We were the girls who felt everything. We bared our souls on the pages, bled out our truths, and shared every jagged edge of who we were with you. We’ve learned that our struggles, heartaches, and bursts of joy weren’t solo adventures—they were universal feelings that many could relate to. It’s no secret that life across the board has been a rollercoaster over the past few years. We’ve fought against the pressure of societal norms, said goodbye to loved ones, and battled waves of depression. Yet, within this time, we’ve also discovered new friendships, had seasons of success, and fallen in love. So many times in life, people only show the highlight reels of their stories. So often, people hide their struggles, making them feel so utterly alone. They put on a happy face for others while wearing a mask to cover up their most sacred, intimate feelings. Yet, we believe that healing can be found within the scars. We believe that beauty can be discovered within pain. For that reason, we invite you into our hearts and minds as we travel behind the closed doors of our souls. Our sophomore poetry collection has been a work in progress over the past five years. It showcases us falling in and out of love, the storms we’ve endured in silence, our sharpest hurts, and our sweetest victories. It shares our heartbeats. We invite you to join us on this journey and hope our poetry can bring you even a fracture of the healing it provided us. We hope that you, too, will laugh and cry and burst with emotions. Because, from this point on, we refuse to keep our struggles behind closed doors. We invite you into the home of emotions. Get comfortable, grab a drink, and stay a while. And by all means—feel. Cry, laugh, get angry, get quiet, get loud. Succumb to the deepest and most raw feelings in your heart. Welcome home, Reader. It’s so great to see you. Now, let’s go inside… Love always, Kandi & Brittainy Something in the water is attached to my ankles. It pulls me down. It makes me drown in every mistake I’ve ever made. The waves remind me of the awkward exchange with a stranger two weeks ago. I play the scene repeatedly. Stupid. The once clear water is murky with thoughts of self-doubt that shouldn’t belong to me. The sharks surround me, waiting for me to surrender. The tides are high. The panic settled into my chest. I scream, I choke, I pray, I cry. Attack. The water is cold, and I want out. I try to make it to the mainland before the ocean swallows me. Something in the water fills me with doubt. All I want to do is find my way out to feel the sun. — B He knew he loved me, he said. But he didn’t know if I was the one. He knew he wanted me, he said. For now, but maybe not forever. He knew he didn’t want to lose me, he said. At least, not yet. But in the end, it didn’t matter what he knew or what he said but rather what I did. I did not wait, I did not beg, I left. — K I used to drink you as my favorite shot of whiskey. Your essence was smooth on the way down. Your soul warmed me from the inside out. But it was a temporary buzz. I gave you up for sober days. Still, your taste lingers. — B When you’ve found your person, you simply just know. I can’t tell you how you will feel, exactly, but you will know. Maybe they’ll make you feel the way you did when you were a child, in the safety of your mother’s home the night before Christmas. Maybe they’ll feel like a song, one you’ve always known, one that always makes you dance. Maybe you won’t be able to place it at all — whatever it is — but you’ll just look at them and see it. “This is what forever looks like,” you’ll say to yourself. “This is where my search ends.” — K Our framed photographs are removed from the apartment walls, leaving holes that need to be patched. The walls we painted vibrant hues are returned to off-white. Two change-of-address forms sit on the dining room table. Post-it notes mark his and her items. Yours and mine. You get the coffee pot. I’ll take the television. I get the vacuum. You take the broom. I cry in the bathroom, covering my mouth so you don’t hear me. Still, you hear me. Moving boxes crowd the space where we used to dance at one o’clock in the morning. You sleep in the guest room. I still roll over in bed, expecting your feet to touch mine. Instead, the chilled sheets greet me with reality. You’re leaving first. Your belongings that once belonged to me are packed in the moving van. You place the key on the kitchen island. I stand in the corner, uncertain of how to feel. Relief? Pain? Grief? Grieving the loss of our possibilities. I