respiration of a haunted house
rating: +9+x

Look down.

See how your chest is rising and falling?
That is breathing.
Breathing means you are alive!

Your lungs fill up with air through your nose and throat
The air comes in, makes your blood red, and is breathed out again.

But I don't need to explain that.
You know how lungs work, don't you?

You have seen them exposed, blowing up like an ugly, putrid balloon
You have felt bronchioles in between gore-stained fingertips
You have sliced apart the diaphragm as it tried to contract
You watch your children's little chests rise and fall as they sleep

phobosportrait

Your face, his face, the face

Your chest, too, rises and falls, but
You do not truly breathe.
You are not alive.
You never were.

Even though you are ashes, dust and decay,
and foundation, brick and wood,

You have learned to blink.
You stutter, you flinch,
You even feign tears.

If one listens close enough, they can even hear your heart going

Thump, thump, thump.

But the heart you lack does not truly beat.

When they cut into you like you cut into
The intruders you deem subhuman
They will find no lungs, no bronchioles, no diaphragm
No beating heart within human ribs

Instead they will find death and dust,
Crumbling brick, foundation, and decaying wood.

Now, look up.
Look up and see the reflection of the face
The one you mimicked from your master's corpse.

You are just a house
That learned how to play pretend.

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