it’s seven o’clock in the morning and the night’s indigo veil hasn’t lifted yet;

tattered nightmares still hang on your eyelashes like burning cobwebs;

muted screams still bleed on your lips;

you had that dream again: your beautiful house back in that city you had always hated but could not escape;

its marble staircase, so smooth and cool to the feet, the great windows letting the light flood every corner,

the laughter of your children playing, the illusion that it would last forever

that you would grow old loved and cherished in it.

one day everybody left; they turned their backs without a goodbye.

silence made its kingdom there, clothed in waiting, weaving hopes,

white frozen days, months of staring at the blank walls -

your house turned into an empty shell; your garden withered; 

one day someone else moved in: another family - noise, lies and secrets and all - 

two children who had already noticed the torn hem of mother’s sequinned evening gown,

the glint of sadness in her eyes, 

the scream hidden in the festive music;

the family was like any other: loss, betrayal, dark turns of fate coiled around their steps -

yet they pretended they lived a normal life in their new home.

by then you were far away; you still visit the old house in dreams -

it always leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, like after a nervous breakdown when you’ve smashed precious objects

as if they were gilded prison walls or felt like a stone slate on your chest.

houses are not to be trusted: they belong to the ghosts, never to us.