Saturday 11 April 2009

Returning

Yesterday, I went back to the house I grew up in.
It was silent and cold.
The walls were caving and the windows craving light.
Dusty shrapnel spattered as I picked my way
Across the hall.
I'd torn the ivy from the kitchen window to get in.
The glass had cracked, unsupported.
And scattered over the mildewed sill.
And inward into the sink.
Crumbling debris and needles littered the floor.
And the air craved life,
And the air craved life.


The rooms once had names and hosted moments,
Before time slowed with the boarding of ways in.
Before ivy gloved the house from sun.
I found the cellar door open,
And poised,
And waiting,
And ready for light.
The stairs vanished too quickly into Unseen.
Memory collided with instinct then.
They joined forces -
Both running the same way.
Out.
Get out.
Get out.
I'd heard it before.
The door
Quivered.
The glass on the sill had cut my hands as I scrambled
In.
The warm crimson dripped to the floor
In tick-tock drops of wet on chocking dry,
Creating craters.
The shivering whisper hushed again;
Get out.
Get out.
And everything went wrong.
Everything went wrong.
Something had grown in the time I'd bee gone.
It had been left unchecked for too long.
Like disease in old trees,
Like rumors that lead to foul deeds.
And I ran.
And I ran.
The edges catching my hands
Again.
I left the air to crave
And the cellar door calling for life.
I left the house I grew up in yesterday,
Regretting the blood on the floor
As too much to leave behind.