I hate feeling unsafe,
Especially in my own house.
I finally snapped, screamed,
And said everything I wanted to (mostly).
And now he's come apologizing.
It doesn't feel that genuine,
But what else can I do but bend,
Besides telling him I won't allow him to touch me ever again?

It's frightening,
This house.
And the person I'm stuck in with it.
I can't tell my friends,
I don't want to bother my dad.
But I feel so scared,
And I don't know what to do.
The only thing keeping him at bay is the threat of getting kicked out.
What do I do?
I can't leave,
I've nowhere to go,
But I sure as hell don't want to stay here.

What a weird sort of ticklish feeling.
I'm buzzing and burning,
Hearing music that doesn't seem to be playing.
The darkness is thick,
There's an almost palpable calm,
Stretching from door to door.
I'm the only restless being,
Unable to sleep,
Unable to breathe,
Unable to extricate myself from misery.

I'm longing,
And resisting,
Wishing maybe I could just disappear,
Or at least that these ruined feelings,
Could be bottled and discarded without fear.

I'm so stuck,
Unbelievably,
On such strange things,
On meaningless thoughts.
On people out of my reach,
And those I'd rather never be able to meet.

I didn't want to lose it to him,
Or anyone, ever, nor again.
It's unexpected,
How fast devious joy found me,
Thought I was hidden so far away.
Naively, I indulged too much, too fast,
Not following the designated path,
I've found the forbidden area,
Poisoned by the foul, hideous, miasma.

I think too much.
Brain, a restless jumping bean.
Quiet down,
I need to breathe.

Car lights slip routinely across the top of the room, patterned in twos.
As the song plays on and on, any thoughts dissipate into the tune.

Knock, Knock, Knock,
It’s an anxious, hurried rhythm,
Searching for attention,
The Next Door Ghoul
Wails loudly through the crack under the door.

Annoyed, the neighbour shuns them,
Sliding dark blinds to the sight of it.
Pressed against the frosty glass,
It leaves ****** fingerprints,
And gradually, the cries grow unhappier.

“LOok for me! I want you to see-”
Indignantly, the ghoul pounds a crack into the window.
A windy night, nature howls alongside the grotesque body as it crawls inside.
With shaky feet it finds the target, shivering inside their closet,
“Don’t be scared”
Can’t ignore- it drags them out anyways.

A crackling of bones,
The ghoul bends down,
Revealing a rotting face-
The corpse living underneath this house.
“Did you forget? I used to live here too.”
And the memories flood back,
Unwillingly, a few hateful tears slip from their eyes.
“Life is better without you, I never wanted to remember.”

And suddenly the face of misery splits---
Maggots wiggle from blank sockets,
Dripping, ravenous onto skin,
And underneath their tiny teeth,
The body begins to disappear.
Choice is meaningless,
This taint penetrates the soul.

Sleeplessly tired,
Alert as the moths rushing to death in the chandelier lights,
The cacophony on my wall subsides as the papers fall,
Ink staining my fingers and smeared across my face,
Arrogant character, embedded in my eyes.

I breathe the stale summertime air,
Feeling the heat erode my bones.
The night is wasting, slowly,
I tend to my duties halfheartedly.

Entirely calm,
My life feels so disorganised.
Centering purpose around others-
I come back to find a corpse-shell of myself.
What have I been doing?
Where has my mind run off to?
(And was it ever there in the first place?)

Sinking further into the greenery,
I tangle my legs with the sheets.
Lost in fruitless night-dreams,
Chest aching, hollowly,
This room is my cage.
Yet escape only elevates the danger,
Sit quietly and wait,
Pointlessly looking forward to better days.