Haunts

It's often the living who haunts the house.

Like the broken voice of a little girl that would often sing through the mouth of a bitter adult whose throat is already raw from blunt claws. Sometimes they're the same person from different years. Sometimes they're a mother and a daughter. Which is another way of saying they're the same person. They're each other's reflection in a broken mirror.

Forget an old abandoned mansion when the very house the living resides in has busted pipes, faded paint jobs and molds on the walls. The dead sometimes stays because there was love. But the living often stays even though the love is lost.

Their eyes hollow out before the content of their house does, followed by a pathetic echo down the hall. They can call and call and call but no answer would come from next door. It's almost like they sometimes forget that one can die without needing a funeral. One can die while still having a pulse. One can die simply from growing up and seeing pieces of themselves in the rest of the household.

Tied by loose red threads, bound to bruise and abuse, the living haunts the house like a ghost clinging to the past.