The House

*** TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT ***

I am a house

with a door made of amber and peaches, that

may have been inviting long ago,

but shrivels between two

curtained windows where

strangers peer in,

wondering, anyone home?

while they tap a grimy finger, the

knock echoing throughout

the hollowed-out womb.

 

I used to be filled with floral

furniture of olive and rose,

where housewives sipped

tea (with one scoop of sugar),

tight-lipped and straight-backed,

gossiping through white teeth

paid for by old money husbands.  

 

I was painted with sunshine, a

yellow sunflower planted between grey

houses with grey people whose

smiles constantly dripped down their faces.

But I held the people with bitter smiles

and tongues that tasted apples and

cinnamon and asked:  

What’s your secret ingredient?

To which the wife greedily grinned: Shh

 

I was embellished with emerald

vines, artificially creeping up my sides,

suffocating my paint, but creating

beauty to those whom looked and said:

Your house is so beautiful!

The vines hungrily hung, feeding only

where the sun forgot to shine:

and when my caretakers fed the beast,

she grew, stealing my sunflower-stained

sides, ingraining until she became me.

 

The paint peels now, exposing dirt-brown

wood, rotten with memories.

My emergence makes voices mumble, like

some stolen secret planted between

shivering lips, whispering:

Shh 

 

I am a house, but a home long ago,

before the stranger entered, invitation in

hand. I had left the door unlocked for

him -- he knew his purpose, but forgot

to knock. He ignored the floors where

the lemon-bleach smell rose from and

found the sitting room where shadows slept and

floral-patched sofas blushed, asking him

to sit so he did.

 

When no one arrived to meet him, I assumed

myself a coward, instead of a woman.

The room was stripped of color and beauty;

I wasn’t sure he belonged in my house anymore.

The house trembled as I asked him to go,

holding open the door, and my lips said:

Please leave.

 

He did not stand; he only sat,

his knuckles gripping my sofa’s edge

until it hurt and he laughed until

I could taste the laughter in my mouth,

ringing and ringing in my head, dirty

As blood and empty as iron and still

he towered over me. 

I tried again: Please leave.

 

He said: shh

 

I pushed on my door to close, but the amber

had crystallized itself, melting into molasses

and his eyes were made of steel.

I couldn’t keep him out, so I drew the curtains

on my white windows, tainted brown, until

the sunlight on the tiled floors grew into nothingness.

Dust became dirt until the floor no longer smelled

of lemon.

 

The rot started from the inside,

when the heat stopped running

and the white-teethed wife whom

used to live here looks at her husband,

pulls the blanket closer, and says:

Dear, it’s cold. Can’t we fix it?
and he just shakes his head: Shh

the sound whistling between his

teeth until the wife begins dreaming

of the sun burning until her husband’s

secret wakes her again.

 

Cotton-stitched sheets cover the couches,

and the rosewood table where life was

discussed and devoured hangs on its side, 

because no one has breathed in this house

since the windows stopped opening, which

no one seems able to fix.

 

And if a stranger comes knocking,

whispering, anyone home?

There is no reply, but sometimes:

A faint whistle

carries a wind

throughout the house,

turning the edges of sheets,

tripping over time,

repeating:

Shh