Breath

The house’s breath embroidering names upon the walls.
An alphabet of steps brushed across cracks and trembling light.
Strangers, inhabitants of a night, left a gentle trace.
Every name composes itself in the air like an unspoken phrase.
In the corridors, time holds its breath at their passing.
The windows guard syllables of water and bread.
A kitchen keeps laughter; a room breathes forgotten clothes.
The floor knows the stairs that climbed, yet remaining in place.
With the days, the house silences names but keeps them in its breath.
Every room is an archive of voices gone, yet present.
If you listen, the echo reveals who was there, without naming them.
And so the breath remains a house that breathes with those who once lived within it.