The House That Dreamed of Me

At night, the house begins to speak.

Not with words, but with the quiet creak of beams

and the low breath of the radiator remembering winter.

"You’re late," it says,

in the language of doors that never quite shut.

"I know," I answer,

dropping my keys like stones into a river that has always known my hands.

The house has dreamed of me for years.

Long before I was born, it kept a room empty,

walls whispering my name like wind on old wood.

I used to think I chose this place.

But some places choose you first,

and wait.

The ceiling breathes when I do.

The floorboards shift to cradle my steps.

The walls are not walls at all but lungs,

holding the air of every word I have not spoken.

"Stay," it hums through the pipes.

"Stay until the night forgets the hour."

I tell it I will leave one day.

I tell it this is temporary.

The house creaks like laughter.

Houses know what people don’t:

what belongs to you is rarely what you choose.

I press my palm against the wall,

and it presses back, warm as an old friend.

It remembers things I don’t —

the nights I cried on the kitchen floor,

the mornings I traced my name on fogged glass,

the silence I mistook for emptiness.

It remembers me even when I try to forget myself.

"Will you dream of me when I’m gone?" I ask.

The house exhales,

and the wind at the window nods like a witness.

"I will keep the shape of you in my bones," it says.

"And when someone else walks these halls,

they will hear echoes they can’t explain."

I turn off the light.

The house does not sleep.

It keeps dreaming,

and somewhere inside its quiet heart,

so do I.