Haunted House
by Karly White
In this haunted house,
There’s no phantoms in the corridors
Poltergeists in the pantry
The walls don’t bleed,
And the mirror only shows your face,
Puffy from crying,
Silent in the bathroom,
Trying to quiet your tears,
Because the insults never end.
Because you can’t live up to the dead,
Who are felt like a presence.
Not ghosts,
But somehow,
Manifest all the same.
You can’t measure up,
Your perfect competition,
Who never had a chance to disappoint,
Escaped the mortal coil,
Left you to bear the scars on your own;
On your arms.
The doors aren’t locked,
But you’re trapped all the same.
There are no barred gates,
But you can’t drive away.
And there’s nowhere to go.
No monsters under the bed,
No horrors from the cosmos.
Just the people who promised to
Love and care.
And the wounds that you bear,
In exchange
For breathing the wrong air.
There’s no phantoms in the corridors
Poltergeists in the pantry
The walls don’t bleed,
And the mirror only shows your face,
Puffy from crying,
Silent in the bathroom,
Trying to quiet your tears,
Because the insults never end.
Because you can’t live up to the dead,
Who are felt like a presence.
Not ghosts,
But somehow,
Manifest all the same.
You can’t measure up,
Your perfect competition,
Who never had a chance to disappoint,
Escaped the mortal coil,
Left you to bear the scars on your own;
On your arms.
The doors aren’t locked,
But you’re trapped all the same.
There are no barred gates,
But you can’t drive away.
And there’s nowhere to go.
No monsters under the bed,
No horrors from the cosmos.
Just the people who promised to
Love and care.
And the wounds that you bear,
In exchange
For breathing the wrong air.
Karly Noelle Abreu White is a writer whose work has been featured in publications such as The Unmooring Journal, Writers Resist, Lines of Velocity, Untangled, Nothing Held Back, and Pieces of Me. She holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Biola University and lives in Southern California with her husband, two children, and fussy cat, where she can usually be found sipping tea.