I Should Not Have Looked

I Should Not Have Looked

There is something wrong in this house,

Not loud, not clear,

Just wrong enough,

That you notice it when you’re alone.

It started small,

A sound under the stairs,

Like someone shifting their weight,

Trying not to be heard.

I told myself it was nothing,

Pipes, wood, old nails,

All the usual lies,

All the things that make it easier.

But it learned.

That’s the worst part,

It learned when I listened,

It learned when I froze,

It learned my fear.

The sounds got slower,

More careful,

Like it understood patience,

Like it had time.

One night I heard breathing,

Clear as anything,

Not mine,

Not from above.

Right there under the steps,

Just behind the wood,

Slow, steady,

Waiting.

I should have left it,

I should have stayed upstairs,

I should have let it stay a sound,

And nothing more.

But I knelt down anyway.

I don’t know why,

Something pulled me,

Not strong, just enough,

to make it feel like my choice.

There’s a gap near the bottom,

You wouldn’t notice it,

Unless you were looking,

Unless you were listening.

I put my eye to it.

At first nothing,

Just black,

Thick, deep,

Like it went too far back.

Then something moved.

Not fast,

Not jumping out,

Just leaning closer,

Like it had been there all along.

I didn’t see a face,

That would have been easier,

It was worse than that,

It was almost one.

Too close together,

Too wrong to name,

Like it was still deciding,

What to be.

It breathed my name,

Quiet, broken,

Like it had been practicing,

Like it finally got it right.

I fell back hard,

Hit the wall,

Couldn’t breathe,

Couldn’t think.

The next morning I checked again,

I had to,

Just to prove something,

Just to end it.

The gap was gone.

No space, no mark,

Nothing at all,

Just solid wood,

Like it had never been there.

But at night,

When the house settles,

I hear it still.

Not under the stairs anymore,

No, not there.

Closer.

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