Figments of Creativity
From the Beginning 📦
House Rules
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House Rules

Memory, control, and surviving

Some things don’t need to be said.
Or—they’ve already been said enough, in therapy, behind closed doors, in my own head.

This song is all you really need to know.


he had rules
i had eyes
watched him speak
watched her comply

no tears aloud
no space to shake
just broken people
in their place

the patriarchy ran wild in that house
we called it normal
we called it love
but it felt like silence
it felt like dust

i lit up outside
words came easy
but at that door
they left me

school was air
books were light
home was tiptoe
home was tight

the patriarchy ran wild in that house
we called it normal
we called it love
but it felt like silence
it felt like dust

don’t be loud
don’t take space
don’t ask why
just behave

i didn’t cry
i didn’t scream
i just watched
and learned
how not to be seen

✶ This essay is part of From the Beginning, a personal series built from my diaries—one memory at a time. You’re reading 1998. Each piece revisits the girl I was, the world I came from, and the details I didn’t know I was already saving.


Next…

From the Beginning 📦

The girl who read the whole library

The girl who read the whole library

The town library was a big room on the second floor of the town hall—the same building where the mayor governed and official papers were stamped into being.

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