Nothing I ever touched stayed mine for long.
Not the cracked glass of the window on Lincoln Street,
that warped the world into something too soft at the edges.
Not the rasp of my father's voice in the hallway,
or the breath I stole when the air turned too still.
Even the dust had its own rules.
___________________________________
I was five, maybe six,
when I first knew the house wasn’t empty,
even when it was.
There was always something just outside of view -
a slow drift in the mirror,
a hum behind the drywall.
Something beneath the floor
that knew my name
before I knew how to spell it.
The attic door opened on its own once.
My mother said it was the wind.
I didn’t tell her
there was no wind that night.
Only silence -
thick as a quilt soaked in river water.
And just down the block - Woodlawn.
Where the graves seemed to lean toward the street
like they were trying to listen.
Or warn me.
I’d cut across it sometimes on the way home,
pretending the stones were just stone.
Pretending the names didn’t echo
when I said them under my breath.
They still do.
I moved far from there.
Different air now,
at the corner of Southern and Kenosha,
where the trees don’t whisper
because there aren’t enough of them.
The nights here are quieter,
but not better.
The silence here feels practiced.
Like it knows I’m watching.
Like it’s waiting to open its mouth.
Sometimes, around 3:13 a.m. -
always the same time -
I wake choking on the taste of earth.
Like I’ve been underground.
Like I never left Elmira.
Like I never left that house.
Like something followed me here.
I don’t dream anymore.
I remember.
I remember things I never saw.
Like my own body
folded neatly into a crawlspace,
the walls breathing around me.
Like a voice - dry as old paper -
repeating what I thought I’d forgotten:
“Even this will be taken.”
He comes sometimes.
Not as a monster.
Not even a man.
More like a question I’m too tired to answer.
No face. No hands.
But the pressure in the room shifts,
like something is leaning.
And the lights don’t flicker -
they just…dim.
Like they’re afraid to look.
He doesn’t say much,
but when he does,
it feels like a mistake
to have ever listened.
And still, I do.
He told me once -
whispered it into the curve of my spine -
“Nothing belongs to you.
Not your breath.
Not your bones.
Not even the pain you’ve made peace with.”
There’s something brutal about that kind of truth.
It doesn't scream.
It just waits.
The more I try to forget Lincoln Street,
the more I remember
the damp in the walls that never dried,
how the shadows crawled counterclockwise,
how the house made room for things
that weren’t supposed to be there.
I thought moving would fix it.
Thought brighter rooms and newer floors
could outrun it.
But the thing is -
When I turn out the lights
and listen carefully,
I can hear the laughter.
Not loud.
Not joyous.
A crackling laugh, like dried leaves
caught in a gutter -
or bone on bone.
And if I hold still long enough,
I swear I can hear it again:
the low creak of the house on Lincoln
calling me back,
not in voice -
in gravity.
The dirt wants me.
Not now.
But eventually.
It always gets what it’s owed.
So I breathe in,
knowing I cannot keep it.
Knowing that everything
must be returned.
And if you’re quiet enough,
long enough,
you’ll hear it too.
That old voice
somewhere behind your walls,
behind your ribs,
soft and certain -
Even this moment.
Even this skin.
Even the silence that now
surrounds you
as you read these words -
and realize
you are not alone
in the room.
GBS
2009
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