The House at Night Without You

My roommate left for the weekend

and I'm alone like I was then—

the first night in my own space,

how the house became strange after dark,

the hallway stretched, the silence held weight,

every sound became something else, a mark

of something moving in the walls.

The dark hallway at midnight

is the same. My door half-open,

the kitchen light off, and the old feeling

returns—that I'm the only person breathing

in this world, and if something fell

through the dark, if something came,

there would be no one to answer.

I'm older. I know

the house isn't haunted.

I know the sounds have explanations.

But the fear is the same—

freedom and terror mixed together,

the knowledge that I could do anything

and nobody would know,

and also that if I needed help,

there would be no one to call.

I sleep the way I did then,

listening, waiting,

caught between safety and the certain knowledge

that safety was always just a story

I told myself to make the dark

less heavy,

less real.