The Quiet House

There is a house inside me

where no one lives,

but all the windows

watch.

The floorboards creak

with names I never said,

words I chewed

and buried

beneath polite smiles.

In the attic,

a scream sleeps

with dust in its mouth —

too old to rise,

too loud to forget.

My mother taught me silence

like a second language.

She’d flinch at thunder

but whisper,

“We don’t talk about that.”

So I learned to tuck pain

behind curtains,

to nod

even when every bone said run.

Some nights,

I visit the basement

where fear hums low —

like a fridge,

or a warning.

I see mirrors there

that warp my face,

ask:

Who would you be

if you ever said it?

I don’t know.

I never said it.

There’s a hallway

I never walk.

At the end,

a locked door.

Behind it,

the truth

with all its teeth.

But this poem

is a key.

I’m turning it slowly.

The hinges groan.

And something—

maybe me—

is waking up

inside the quiet.