Do not go. I've been inside:
eerily damp with peeling burgundy
paint and furniture paralyzed
in all the lifelessness. It sat deep
in the bones of the old house.

But it was not lifeless, the haunt
grew thick like smog and electrified
in a ghostly whisper along the walls.

You are a thimble sitting in the stifle
of a dresser drawer, a tasteless floral
lining snarling a hard, cracked smile.

Like a finger pricked until calloused,
I am begging you not to puncture
its atmosphere, to breathe its breath.

That place hides the things that beg
for horror, that wait past a staircase,
beyond murmuring ceilings as pale
as chalk and attic floors velvet with dust.

I have been inside the house, it lives
in the mind, ever petrifying, so

I'm warning you

do
not
go.