Between Bruises and Blooms

There is a house
at the edge of forgetting,

where the windows
no longer remember
what light looked like.

I sit beneath its broken porch
with a candle
balanced between my hands,

letting the flame
pretend it is brave enough
to keep the dark away.

The wind speaks first.

It always does.

It slips through cracked boards
like old ghosts
still pacing familiar hallways,
searching for names
they haven’t heard in years.

I do not fear them.

I know what it is
to haunt a place
long after leaving it.

The ivy has swallowed the walls,
the moon has swallowed the sky,
and somewhere inside,
the house exhales—

as though it recognizes me.

Perhaps abandoned things
can always find each other.

Perhaps grief
has its own address.

So I leave the candle burning
just a little longer,

not to chase away spirits,

but so that any soul
still wandering those empty rooms

will know

someone remembered
to bring them light.