Revisited

She's careful not to tread over the cobwebs as the leaves crunch under her feet like insect carcasses. The obsidian shells of former winged menaces disintegrate and intermingle with the dust of her past.

Her past is not a glamorous one. The wooden foundations creak as she treads across the surface, groaning in danger of inevitable collapse. As she looks at the portraits on the dilapidated walls, she sees the glimmering naivete of the girl that had been phased out of her body, the girl who once crafted poetic declarations and perfected the art of writing stillborn love letters. The girl who no longer exists in this world.

With an idle finger, she brushes off the dust on one particular portrait on the wall. The photograph has been damaged, eaten away by bookworms and ravenous moths, by time. She cannot remember the face anymore.

Certain words have already reached her ears, words that neither shock nor disgust -- they merely confirm what she had already learned too long ago. She holds the frame in her hand, studying the holes riddled in the picture, obscuring the memory of the something that had once been everything.

With a smile, she gently places the frame back onto its spot on the wall. Smoothing out her skirt, she walks out of the house, sparing one last glance at the words of longing carved into the stripping wall-papered walls. She takes one last look at the monument to her former tormented passions. Then, with the flick of a wrist, she casts the match aside and watches the flames engulf her greatest shame.