This House | Teen Ink

This House

January 11, 2009
By Anonymous

This house isn't made of lies
or chaos or broken down words.

This house is made out of

the prayers of a family
on their knees, whispering
sweet words to an empty master,

and subdued colors
because brightness can only
hurt her drowning eyes.

This house is

a decaying evergreen, pine
still trying to reach equilibrium
at once-white walls, and air that
drips of song and melody

and the sloshing of
liquid in glass.

This house is made of

a knock on death's door,

just one,

and a pantry closet
where we used to revel,

but now it is cluttered
and overgrown, filled with
cans and dreams and anything
but out quaking bodies.

This house is

your leftover smiles, two-years-
old, and I think that was the last
time I saw one.

This house has

an x-ray of her heart taped to
the window because
on paper it still looks

empty,

and flowers washed out with
bokeh from tired eyes,

and a bed that is made for
sitting and standing and
open lids because she
never goes to sleep.



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