The House is Quiet

The house is quiet.

Bible out;

flipped open to a highlighted page of scripture,

smooth pages drown in a condemning  yellow ink.

The house is quiet.

Floors creak.

Echoes of pleading screams still bounce off the pale walls.

But if you listen closely, a child’s faint laughter whispers

in old sleeping bags hiding underneath of dad’s bed.

The house is quiet.

The rabbit’s cage is tipped over as the remnants of a rich cedar linger in the air. 

Clothes are scattered throughout the hall,

sleeping bags long forgotten.

I inhale deeply my final drag of this cigarette,

As the thick smoke billows off making trails into the wind.

My house is quiet now.

But my body screams loudly of tattoos and piercings,

And my soul screams louder of a sin unspoken of.

Autumn leaves fall as I flick my cigarette into a pile of the driest I can find.

The blazing orange fire is so glorious,

as it burns the quiet house down.

Highlighted pages turn to ash and snow down on me into winter,

where I lie here in the snow.

The house is quiet,

My bedroom is too.

Ever since I left that autumn day. 

Reviews

[alifeacoustic]

Sounds to me like the burning of memories that were made and lived by the other you, the one that was more accepted than now. Good and bad memories from childhood (for we need both), obliterated at what you are seen to be now, the good girl gone bad, which I assume you have heard more than once and only say that to make the point, as I don't label, as per my pervious comment on another post. I wonder just how many of us turn out the way people expected.
This again, is written beautifully, with a then and now reminiscent feel to it. Excellent.