Your Memory is the Ghost I Fear

This house used to be light and airy. The light pine cabinets and honey colored floors were warm. The sun slanted into the windows like dusty ridges of daydreams. The curtains fluttered lightly in the breezes from the open windows. Cherry wood shelves held dark leather volumes Homer and Austen. At night, laughter and warm golden lamplight spilled out like a bursting star. This home always smelled like flowers and food and laundry detergent. Dogs curled in comfortable piles across cushions and children while movies or music played. While you held me.

While you loved me.

Now the house smells stale and acrid, like a stain that just never seems to leave. The lights flicker and go out when I walk into a room, leaving me in the dark and scared. Just like you left me. Alone and afraid. Sometimes I hear the doors slam when I'm all alone in the house as if the spirit of your betrayal still haunts me.

I want to continue to love this old place with its wild gardens and twisting trees. With it's owls and hawks and squirrels. With it's hummingbirds and sparrows and quail.
But...

Since you left the dog has started to sound just like you when she snores and I feel you watching me in an empty house. The air still smells of your body.

Your memory haunts until I fear my home.