The Place That Holds

There’s a place that won’t show up on any map.

It isn’t known. It never needed to be. It isn’t pretty, at least not in the way things usually are. It was mine — or at least, it felt like it was.

This place leans slightly left. The floors groan when I walk across them, tired but still holding. The walls are too thin in winter. The windows quake, as if the whole thing might crumble if the storm intensity increases. When I step back and really look, I see it’s been through hell — a foundation so vulnerable it’s a miracle it’s still standing. But when I’m inside, it doesn’t matter. Inside, there’s a steadiness the rest of the world refuses to give me. It’s not light or strength that saves me here — it’s weight.

The weight of the land keeps me down when everything else wants to slip away. The weight of the sky, never quite right, always pressing in. The weight of the fence, unbroken even when I’m sure it should have by now. It’s not perfect. It’s not impenetrable. But it’s all I have, so I’m grateful to have somewhere.

This place gave as much as it took, leaving me wondering, in the end, if any of it had been real at all.

It swallowed me whole. It took my mind, my energy, my wants. It took my soul. It took so much that sometimes I wondered if I’d survive it. It turned me into someone I never wanted to be — someone I’d long left behind.

But still, in the midst of the chaos, this place had a pull too. It didn’t offer the simplicity of hope or warmth. Instead, something greater — real, unshakable safety, the kind that made me forget I was even hurting in the first place. The kind that made me forget what it was to be scared. For the first time in a long time, it gave me quiet. A space to rest while breathing. It filled me with a desperate need to be held, to be kept — in a way that feels overwhelming, visceral, beyond what a simple house could give.

It wasn’t vibrant or bright. It wasn’t conflicted by what was going on outside the four walls. It wasn’t something I could see or touch. But it was real. It gave me a glimpse of more — a future that felt stable, grounded, in a way nothing had before.

I could sit on the floor here for hours, breathing in the smell of rain-soaked wood mixed with old dust, yet it would be okay. The storms could claw at the roof, scream down the chimney, but I’d still be alright — tucked between walls that knew how to stay. I could fall apart here, but the pieces would still belong somewhere. There are a thousand cracks in the paint, although sometimes I wonder if the place is held together by stubbornness alone. But that’s the thing — even stubbornness feels like tenderness here.

When I let myself believe it’s real, it feels like being pulled back to the surface after I’ve been drowning for too long. It feels like breathing again. It’s in the silence of the place, the way it holds me even when I feel like I’m falling apart. It’s in the stillness — the stillness that’s both terrifying yet comforting. Maybe, if I stay long enough, the storm will pass. The world outside won’t feel so heavy anymore.

But there’s a struggle. I can’t force change. I can’t make it stop being what it is, even if it’s everything I never thought I’d need. Yet, the harder I try to leave, the more I feel yanked back, held by something I can’t explain. It’s not Stockholm Syndrome. It’s not being held hostage. But this pull is deep with magnetism. It refuses to let me walk away.

This place, what I hoped was mine. It’s haunted, not just by the ghosts of what came before, but by the weight of choices made in the very rooms I now walk through. Every crack in the walls, every shudder of the floor, echoes with the lives that came before me — the choices that shaped the foundation, thus, by extension, shaped me. This house is a prison built on regret, a place where the past never truly leaves, but lingers, woven into the very fabric of the air I breathe. It’s not just the walls that hurt; it’s the things that have been said, the things that have been done, the things that can never be undone. So, I am trapped, caught in the echoes of them all.

Then it hits me — the thought that it might not be real. Not the house, not the safety, not the love I’ve convinced myself I’m getting. The possibility that this place isn’t what it seems — that I’ve built it in my mind to make life bearable. It terrifies me, that it could all be a lie. The thought of loss feels like lead in my bones — a sensation I’d heard of before but never truly understood until now. Suddenly, I wonder if there’s anything left to hold on to.

In the quiet corners of the house, where the light never quite reached, the skulls seemed to watch silently. They weren’t menacing, but they were constant, like the truth I couldn’t escape. They reminded me of the way things had broken, the way they continued to break.

The dim light that fell across them from time to time never illuminated their cracks or the chips in their surface, yet they remained, fixed to the shelves as if part of the structure itself. They weren’t alive, but they had presence — more than I could give them credit for when I first found them.

There was a coldness in their stillness, a kind of absence that felt like the echo of every argument, every unresolved question left hanging in the air. Sometimes, when I sat on the floor and looked up at them, I could almost hear the whispers of everything I’d buried, everything I wasn’t ready to face. The house held its breath — but the skulls didn’t. They bore witness, their hollow eyes forever fixed on me, waiting for me to understand that part of us had died long before the house began to crumble.

Every so often, the clock strikes 11:11. Every time it does, the house seems to exhale, as if waiting for change.

I can’t decide if that’s the magic behind it, or the turmoil — so all-consuming that I don’t even realize how long I’ve been here. By the time I stop to look at the clock or check the calendar, months have passed.

I know it’s not right. I know it hurts. But I can’t leave, not yet. I don’t know how to leave. Not when the weight of this place feels like the only thing that’s kept me from falling apart entirely.

I wonder if that’s what it’s meant to be: a place that takes as well as gives, all at once. A place that leaves me empty but full at the same time. A place that keeps me in the dark but lets me feel warmth when I’m cold. A place that hurts me while loving me, all in the same breath. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the only kind of love I know how to live with.

It’s not about whether I can leave. I don’t even know if it’s about gaining or losing. Perhaps it’s about acknowledging that there’s a part of me the house has kept — a part that I don’t know how to release. Either way, it’s gone now. I don’t have it anymore.

The ceiling has caved in. The walls are stripped bare. I’m alone, exposed, vulnerable — still trapped in those walls, holding on to something I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let go of. A piece of me is still trapped within those walls, pulling me back every time I try to escape.

I can’t help but feel betrayed, watching it crumble around me. It cracked, not in ruins, but still standing, powerful in its remnants. My heart, buried beneath rubble.