The house stands, white and vacant, a mausoleum in the middle of nowhere. I’m a child again, lost in the dead grass, where no one’s ever really lived.
A crow watches—too **** close—and I can feel it, that cold, relentless weight on my chest. The swings creak, a broken lullaby. Names whispered in the wind, not mine, but they tear through the air like a chain.
I half-return, half-flee, caught in the dark breath of a place that hasn’t let go. The lawn’s dead, the house is dead, and I—am I still breathing?