I am a small girl lying on a very big bed.

I am a small girl lying on a very big bed. A bed too big for a small girl. The headboard is tall and high and it almost touches the ceiling. It is made of dark wood and it’s ornate. There are carvings and wooden pieces shaped like balls that come off in my hand. They are cold and soft and fit easily in place with a small peg that goes into a wooden hole. And there are thick ugly curtains that hang down around the bed. There are a dozen of them. They are red and white but they look pink if you squint your eyes. And if you look closely there are people drawn on the curtains. They are ugly people but I’m not sure why. They are dressed like Victorian people and they are pushing wheel barrels and fishing and the women are wearing big dresses and mostly they are outdoors, maybe they are farmers, maybe they are just rich and they don’t have anything important to do. I don’t know. I stare at them so much that they become empty like little ghosts all around me. I don’t like them. And I am tucked into another large heavy blanket with the same people – the curtain people – and my pillows are covered with the curtain people, too, and everything matches and I am wearing a white lacey nightgown and I am tucked into the big heavy tall wooden bed like a Victorian doll with the heavy blanket on me with the curtain people dancing on me and all around me.

And to the left of my bed is a night-table made of the same dark wood as the bed. It has a cold, white marble top. And from the window I can see the street and the trees and the slanted red roof. And if I open the window, I can climb out onto the roof. And I am not afraid. I would rather be on the roof or in the tree than in this stupid bed. And on the floor there is a thick scratchy wool carpet – pink and baby blue – and it is Persian in design and it is so big that it takes up the whole room and the room is big and I am small. And at the foot of the bed there is a foot-board – dark and wooden and ornate – and then a dark wooden trunk – and there is a dark wooden dresser across the room with a white marble top and a big mirror shaped like an hour-glass. And hanging in the center of the room is a brass and glass chandelier and I’m always afraid it’s going to break and I don’t like to touch it, especially when mom makes me clean it because it is dusty.

And there are more windows across the room and the room is shaped like a circle because there is a tower above me – on the third floor – and I’m in the room just below the tower. And under the thick scratchy carpet is a wooden floor. And the wooden floors are everywhere throughout the whole house and the house is big – 14 rooms and four floors – and I am small and it is way too much room for 4 people, sometimes 3. And I don’t think there should be this much space between people. And my brother’s room is next door to mine. His room is shaped like a square, not a circle. And his bed is shaped like a square and so is his headboard. And his headboard is small and simple. And his carpet is big, too, but not as scratchy as mine and the colors are dark blue and brown. My brother doesn’t have the heavy curtains or the bedspread. In fact, I don’t think he has curtains at all. His room is warm. Mine is cold. He doesn’t have a chandelier. He has a TV and video games. He has friends come over and play. I don’t really have friends. I write in my diary. When I finish one, I start another. I think I may have filled 12 of them by now.

I spend a lot of time in my bed. Mostly thinking and talking to God. Mom said that God can hear my thoughts so I don’t have to talk out loud. I can just think about what I want to say and he can hear me. I try to ask him about ‘forever.’ I want to know what it means to be somewhere forever. I can’t really understand forever. It’s kind of like a waterfall that never runs out. That doesn’t really make sense to me. It feels like forever since I’ve been in this bed and this room and I wonder if it will ever be any different. I wonder if I will be in this bed forever.