the boy in a historic home.

I met a boy who said he lived in an old house.

Later I learned that his parents cared for a historic home.

Shrouded by autumn leaves from Virginian trees.

I wondered if, in the shadows, he'd ever seen the spirits roam.

I still think about him, that small boy,

running through old hallways and crashing into fragile walls.

His laugh bouncing off dead wood and skeletons of childhood.

Him and a shadow, the light never makes it to the end of the halls.

He wrote stories about old families and kids who were once there.

"it makes me feel less alone," he told me, under a dying oak tree.

Perhaps they became friends, he kept the roses, they kept the stems.

but I was scared of the ghosts, they stirred inside and tried to flee.

I told him once, that his house was haunted.

It always felt like someone had already stepped into my footprint.

Maybe that's why the carpets were deep red and he pulled at the thread.

Its history was filled with things we could have said but didn't.

He said, during raging thunderstorms at night,

he would hide in the closet, so I asked "were you scared to be alone?"

But the little girl with whom he'd hide would sit at his side.

Flashes of light came through the creaks, softly filling his bones.

Years later, I thought that Virginia, warm and historic,

would always remain haunted, by the dead and alive.

Some things echo on the floors and others create locked doors.

I could see the ghosts in his eyes even when we were five.

Once, he dreamt that the house swallowed him whole,

so he ran to my bedroom window, his face pale and flushed.

I held the window open but I felt that something was broken,

he told me stories about the family, his whispers hushed.

Then he closed the window, and ran back to the historic house,

I think he never really found the house to be his own.

Living in other people's shoes his feet became bruised,

Maybe he was scarred by the history that was never shown.