I’ve been here before.
It’s always the same.
The house fills with the hum
Of whispering voices,
Low and quiet,
Blending together,
To the point that they stop talking,
Not saying anything anymore.
Meaning nothing anymore.
Each voice stops being unique,
Nobody is themselves anymore,
All joining into one dull roar,
A dyne of whisper
So quiet, yet so load,
Roaring silently.
There’s no solace in the deaf halls.
Each room echoes silence as I pass.

Sitting,
Trying to make out a word or two,
Here or there,
I can’t help but stare at the lights.
Their bulbs resonating until
The halo shoots off into thin needle-like beams,
Until they turn fuzzy, like a star.
Pulsing,
Pulsing,
Pulsing.
Beating rhythmically like a heart.

Dueling clocks tick out of time.
The chimes roar,
And thunder though the hall,
Echoing through the house of hushed voices.
The words I pick out linger in my head,
Reasonating, sinking in.
How long?
What next?
Leave me alone.

I’m not a child.
Not this time, I know better.
I know what’s going on now.
I’m not stupid.
I’m not a child.
I know.
Why won’t anyone say it?
Do they think that if you don’t say the word,
don’t say what’s going on,
It will go away?
It won’t.

Here in the house of hushed voices,
Everyone I waiting for it to happen,
But nobody will say it.
Nobody dares to say it.
It lingers like a ghost,
Flooding into the corners of every room,
Filling the dark spaces, feeding anxieties.
It’s watching,
Constantly.
There’s no solace in the house
Where the echoes scream,
And the whispers rage,
And the light beats like a heart.

It’s always the same,
The ghost, the light,
The hushed voices.
It’s always the same.
Nobody says it.
Nobody will say it.
If you say it,
It’s real.
If you say it,
You have to face it.
And nobody can face it,
Not yet.
So the house remains,
Filled with hushed voices,
The light and the ghost.
Waiting.