Whispers before the screams come

Something is holding its breath—as if time itself were bracing for a rupture.

I float the hallway, where memory ferments the walls reeking what was never said.

It’s pull—dense with intoxication,

where the detritus of former selves decay beneath the plaster.

In the periphery,

be it mammoth or phantom

perhaps an elephant.

Or more precisely,

An emblem embodying all that has been repressed.

I avert my pupils.

Loose footing.

This room fatigues me,

yet it has long served

as the site of my private victories.

The disarticulated remnants

of selves I discarded

but never buried.

Behind a veil—a bedsheet with two holes poked through for sight,

believing such cloak might render me unseen,

sustaining the myth of invisibility

as a method of flight.

At the hearthside table,

a teacup rattles

though no hand stir it.

I possess no limbs.

The fly hums.

The clock ticks.

Both rebuking me from the wall,

in high pitch wailing.

The phantom beast speaks:

“Remove thy shroud.”

And beneath,

I am unadorned.

Exposed. Bare.

My hands tremble before a locked drawer

long sealed,

its contents unknown.

And the house

the house leans in

to

whisper before the screams come.