By living alone i am escaping a haunted house. to leave is to be spat out undigested, a bone picked clean of meat but spared the marrow. it was always me who refused to be easily swallowed. it was always you who hated that.
We both know this haunting didn’t seep out from the walls, it was set in every room. (you made sure of that.) in such a space, articles of comfort are more unpleasant than bare walls - far worse than nothingness, they are marks of you. it is true you have built a home. but it is not my home.
Your haunting is pristine, white walls and tasteful furniture. beautiful but unwilling to be dwelt in. in polished mirrors, everyone is dirt. at least a gutted, rotting place could have been somewhere someone like me was loved, some long time ago. even claimed by mould and time such a house is less of a haunting than any space shared with you. at least i can imagine those crumbling walls as having once been the pillars of a life. at least among them i am clean.
if you are a leech, i am water, part of blood but never enough, you consume more than i alone can give you. you consume more than i would part with, even if i could.
if a home with you is a haunting, a house alone is a half dug grave.
but at least theres work left to do.
at least i wont be rotting alongside you.
A poem about refusing to be consumed by something that claims to love you.
