House

A house is like a human
But not just on the outside
With eye-like windows and a door for a mouth
The inside is the same
A kitchen, for processing food
A living room, for thinking and talking
The basement is the same
Filled with the cadavers of spiders
And dusted fragments that once were webs
Unopened boxes from the far past
Still with peeling tape
Somehow keeping the worn cardboard together
The basement is dark
The lights never seem to fully illuminate it like other rooms
Just like us.
But the basement should not be feared
The bedroom
However
Should be.
It doesn’t have spider cadavers or fragmented webs
Or boxes with peeling tape
That’s not how the bedroom scares you
As even though the kitchen is for eating
The bedroom
Is the maw
Of the house.
As you lay in bed
Grasping onto those last strands of consciousness
Before you slip away to a dreamless slumber
You give yourself to the house.
Your helpless, unpiloted but still animate body
Just lying there
Wrapped in cotton sheets and goose down
In those fleeting moments
With all the lights off
Tuning out the other sounds
Of the waking world
The house is patient
For it cannot starve
But it can hunger
So it waits
An endurance game
It waits
For your fatigue to take over
The house is patient
A house is like a human
The windows follow you like pupils
The door mimics the movement of lips
But it’s not just on the outside
With a kitchen for processing food
And a living room for thinking and talking
A basement for fears
And a bedroom
For a mouth.