(Content warning: implicit references to blood and violence)

I was twelve and they were giggling when I melted into the floorboards.

They were giggling and I was twelve when steaming blood became hard-polished.  

My lungs and lips slipped into the cracks and I was twelve and lost a tooth on the way.

I see the tooth as I slide through the floors and tickle their feet and they are giggling.

I am contorting and watching them giggling and bone marrow has seeped into the walls.  

They do not see me and I am twelve when I creep into the top corner of the kitchen. I watch them pour tea and drop spoons for years and now I am giggling.  

They are not twelve but I am a house and slither through the attics and rooms.

I whisper through cracks and observe them make love but they are not giggling. Sometimes I will scream and they will fall and I will hug them through the kitchen tiles.  When no one is home I will tear paint away because I am twelve and the floorboards are not giggling.

Strangers appear who are old and are giggling and I will creep beneath their feet and eat them. They will stomp me and I will retreat into the ceiling and watch them while giggling.

I am twelve and I am a house and they are trying to leave me.  I will cry and the house will start giggling and I will slither through its ruins, waiting.  

I am twelve and I am a house and they are screaming it’s haunted!  I will cry and the house will start giggling and I will slither through their ashes, waiting.