This house is a cave
Where silence like a monster
Rests
It has been fed for years
Pieces of children’s skin on their father’s cane
Sent its way like lambs out for slaughter
This house is an asylum of nightmares
Shadows lurk in every doorway
Waiting for the darkest edge of the night
They wait for the mother to implode
And the patriarch to explode
Until they swallow both of them whole
This house was a mistake
A dream destined to self destruct
Dreamt by a hopeless heart
Put to test by toddler souls
Running scared from one dark room to the next
Till one day they elope leaving their scars and heartbreak behind
It has a caustic system
That burns down joy in an incinerator
Every year
The ashes choke the inhabitants
Until their breath becomes shallow air
And love for years has been hiding inside dusty bookshelves
It has rage for bricks
Cemented together with insults
That hold the walls together
Everyday the mother hits the walls softly
Hoping to let the anger course through her veins
At least it’d keep her alive
The father he stares at the unforgiving walls
Searching for absolution
Praying his sins are worthy of redemption
This house is her.
This house is him.
But the one thing this house is not and never was
Is a home.