NOCTURNAL SYMPHONY OF THE DAMNED

Listen — the night has teeth
that gnaw on silence,
consuming peace with sounds
that shouldn’t exist.

Floorboards remember footsteps
of those long buried,
creaking their histories
in morse code complaints.

The wind speaks in tongues,
carrying conversations
from cemetery plots
to bedroom windows.

Branches scratch glass
like skeletal fingers,
writing messages backwards
for mirror-readers to find.

In the walls, pipes gurgle
drinking darkness deep,
while something scuttles
between basement beams.

Hear that?
The stairs are counting
midnight visitors
one by one by one…

Old houses breathe
with others’ lungs,
exhaling memories
of former tenants.

The kettle whispers
at three a.m.,
singing death-bed promises
never quite kept.