Maybe, Emily | A Look in Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom

Maybe, Emily.

As Emily shut the narrow, cream door and released the marble doorknob, I would only imagine she envisioned herself shutting out life behind her. All of her collective experiences and thoughts that she wished to keep out took a left out of her door and traveled like a wisp of wind past caramel hardwood and intricate cream wallpaper. To the right, the hustle and bustle she sealed away swept down smooth, polished banisters: the grand evacuation. Society entangled its limbs around pure white columns and slid down the front stairs with a messy grace and a harsh goodbye. 

Society entangled its limbs around pure white columns and slid down the front stairs with a messy grace and a harsh goodbye. 

I’d imagine Emily anxiously pushing thick gold curtains to the side and peering out onto Main Street. The sort of circus menagerie, both existent and non, would march back to Boston, an exodus. The pedestrian leaves would pirouette as the breeze protested by. She probably grinned before she turned around, maybe an autumn chill would pulse through her. Whether it was a breeze or the lingering enchantment of those she missed, I can only guess. 

The sort of circus menagerie, both existent and non, would march back to Boston, an exodus.

A recluse of sorts, she was an observer of the entanglement of emotions she once encountered. Yet, with the glow of an oil lamp and a simple, wooden table that could fit no more than a single piece of paper, she engulfed those same experiences that she had locked out only minutes prior. Those wisps of wind that traveled eastward would once again be drawn back by the dance of her pen. 

A recluse of sorts, she was an observer of the entanglement of emotions she once encountered.

In the adjoining room lay a deceased sense of life. There was beauty within her home, and only she could hold it. A master of the finer language, all that was longed for, grieved, and loved, was coddled softly on fascicles before being put to bed under pure cotton sheets. I can’t help but wonder if she feared the picket fence- not for its straightforwardness and protection, but rather for the journey she would go on if she dared pass it too often and at the wrong time. Wearing her existence fit with the finest despair, she found more exemption on the other side of the fence, alone- the realm of a poet. 

Maybe when she glanced towards the small mirror and the pink floral garden that outlined it, she imagined her niece at her door. With her imaginary key, maybe she would secure her small, bountiful world once again.

With her imaginary key, maybe she would secure her small, bountiful world once again.

“Maddy, here’s freedom.”

Her mind would take it from here.

By Brooke Lamberti