(For my father, for the forgetting.)
The walls hold onto every unspoken word.
They exhale in the hush of midnight,
soft and sorrowful, as if mourning
what I refuse to name.
I wonder if the house remembers.
If it holds its breath the way I do.
If the walls ache in the quiet,
flinching at the sound of a door opening.
If the floors, cracked, not from time
but from impact, still shake
from the weight of things thrown too hard,
of footsteps too angry, too loud.
Does the house remember the screaming?
The way rage filled these rooms like wildfire,
blackening the walls.
Does it remember the silence that followed,
stretched so sharp
it cut even when no one was speaking?
I open my mouth to say something, anything,
but silence has become a second language,
and forgetting is easier than remembering.
I wonder if the house weeps when no one is watching.
If it hums with something left behind—
something unseen, but never gone.
If it, too, knows how it feels to be haunted.