A House

A study in anxious synesthesia.

By Kristina Ilse Vetter

A house.

I am a house.

I cannot name the walls,

I do not understand the bones.

I cannot see the façade,

I do not recognize the face.

I cannot find the doors.

I do not feel the breath,

I cannot pick the wallpaper.

I do not...

—like the skin.

I cannot place the hearth.

I do not grant the heart

access to...

trespass.

The gate,

Rod ironed and twisted,

founded in ivy strands,

fiery, yet wilting.

The entrance,

wooden and dark,

stands firm against wind,

softly, yet stark.

The house,

it stretches out,

serpentine,

subtle.

Bold.

Brutal, yet graceful.

Forgotten, still.

Tangents, then,

small patterns and shapes.

First blue, all in a line,

magenta at the end,

as it zooms by.

Second, it goes, red,

an octagon I think.

With orange peppered in,

shaking in sync.

Third, it vibrates, green,

triangular,

yellow boldens them

and holds them,

still, but only just.

Long enough till the break,

spectacular in its measure,

forced in its nature.

Colorful and animated,

tangents.

They lead as they confuse,

tease and strike

in hallways not there.

Floors open up

falling down.

Windows slam

open and shut,

screeching, as they slide

in and out of frame.

Patterns once laid on

perfect,

pitch,

black...

scatter.

Their colors diffuse.

Doors.

Perfectly compartmentalized,

boxed,

not tied in ribbons,

but keys,

...I long forgot

where I’ve placed.

Where I made them.

Who may have taken them.

Doors.

They bang

and creak.

Shutter and shake

beneath the weight,

the breath,

that cannot breathe.

At the end of each

and every

pattern,

marked by fear or grief.

Love or loss.

Fate and choices

I will never make.

Choices I cannot take back

and the places

I cannot escape...

this house.

Those who have walked here

they know

this house.

It is haunted.

Blinded in stone,

bleak and winding,

it stands closed,

yet open in tone.

Marked in its own stubborn,

ferocious need

to cry out the names,

that never deserved

...to be there at all.

To walk within these walls,

to dictate taste,

when you cannot see,

feel,

or hear them.

You did not belong here

at all.

And so,

if the lungs cannot breathe,

the heart cannot pump.

The bones then shake.

The skin goes numb.

The face is not mine.

The face is not mine.

The face is not mine.

The face is not mine.

This house is haunted.

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I want to go...

—I am a house

with all of its ghosts home.

I am a house

and I haunt it alone.