There's someone in my house.
I've lived here for years now,
So long I've forgotten when I first came here.
I've been here all this time,
All alone.
No visitors,
No vacuum cleaner salesmen,
No mailmen,
No paper delivery boy,
No census taker.
Just me,
And the dust that filters through the silent sunbeams
Every day.
But today is different
From all the days before,
Because today there is someone else
Inside the house, with me.
I can hear them downstairs,
Making noises,
It sounds like two,
Maybe three,
Talking to each other.
Talking, laughing, normal tones of conversation
As if they belong here.
Opening cabinet doors, looking in closets,
Creaking the floorboards,
Rattling open the window in the front room,
The one I like to sit near in the evenings
To watch the street when it rains,
As if I'm going to see someone I know walk by
Out on the sidewalk.
Now they are turning on the water in the kitchen sink,
That hasn't been used in so long,
That hasn't held a dish or a knife or fork or spoon,
For an age, or maybe two.
I need to investigate,
I need to go down and find out what they are doing,
I need to find out why they are here,
In my house, my fortress.
I turn to vapor, and drift silently
Down the staircase,
Without a sound, and I see them,
But they don't see me.
So I make them see me,
And they never come back.
