House

You approach me and I know who you are.
Your eyes. Your beautiful eyes. They say eyes are the window to the soul. Your soul is perfect.

You demand it of me. You demand to be let in without words, without gestures. I know it and it terrifies me.

If eyes are the window to the soul then skin must be the bricks and mortar. The mouth the door. Only good leaves your house. Every noun is a Saint and every verb a philanthropist.

The garden of your hair makes me weak. You and all your good begin to break me apart. They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. You've left my gas on and now I 'm burning to the ground. Every part of me is heat and butterflies. Destruction and beauty. Is that love?

How is it you posses the keys to me? You can open me as easily as one does a book. Your words are the code to my safety deposit box, your movements are those needed to open my safe. I let you enter without thinking of the consequences. What evil could come of an angel?

You are Lucifer.

I try to flee but you know all the secret passages of my heart, you can find the light switch of my soul. I wish our doors had never met and yet I am glad they did.

My paint has begun to flake. Mould has destroyed my floorboards. My windows are black with dirt. My kitchen is abandoned. Yet you sit on the hill next to me. Warm and glowing. People come to your parties still. My door is nailed shut. My garden is full of weeds. My path grows longer each day.

No one has come with filler, nails and a hammer. I am the shack in the swamp, the cottage on the moors. I sit in the bath and watch the last of the power drain from me as my final light goes out.

Oliver Pilcher.
333 Words.