You have to understand that it’s the house.
At night it calls out to you.
It’s always searching, it wants to catch you and douse
You in hot oil, and gobble you up, leaving no trace as to who
You might have been.
So that feeling you get in the night,
The one that prompts you to get up and search,
It’s that feeling you have to fight.
Because if it could, that house would lurch
To eat whoever it’s sees.
It’s an old house, so old it looks like it might break,
But the inside is empty, all but for a bone.
Don’t go to pick it up, don’t even make the wood creak.
The house can hear you, that much is known.
So if you value your life, don’t be so keen.
So “who am I?” You ask.
I’m just an observer
That’s watched many fall for the house’s task.
I think I’ll go back to being, to being a goat herder
And wash my hands of this, get ‘em real clean.
- Jonas Szepessy
This feels very "Poe-esque" to me! I like the external rhymes and words like "lurch" and "creak" are so descriptive.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the movie Monster House and has the same eerie effect on me. Great word choice to really make it even scarier.
ReplyDeleteThe last line makes me wonder if the issue is really the house, or if the narrator is actually the dangerous one--after all, they seem intent on getting their hands "real clean." The last stanza seems almost nonchalant in the face of so much horror.
ReplyDeleteI love that with each stanza, we learn of something new we shouldn't trust: first the house, then yourself, and finally the narrator. It creates such a creepy, uneasy tone.
I agree with Celeste, the narrator seems suspicious to me 🤨
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of them as well. After a re-reading, the first stanza alludes to the narrator placing blame on the house for who they become in the end.It is subtle, I didn't pick up on it immediately but the last line then brings it back and makes you stop to think
ReplyDelete