A house so silent,

It seems empty.

But it remains haunted

By possibility.

The possibility

Of my father.

The potential

Of a fight

Or a hug.

Has he changed?

His expression say

He hasn't.

But there is a quiet tinge of pain

In my heart

Every time he's in the kitchen

And we ignore each other.

Like ghosts in our own, living house.

Living family.

But we pretend we don't exist anymore.

My brothers visit,

And we pretend we're happy

Just for a little while.

But it's like a reflection

In a cloudy shard of glass.

Barely recognizable,

Easy to misconstrue.

Because it's not real.

Like a trick of the mind,

A flash of light,

A late night hallucination.

Then it fades,

And we're back to the ambiguity

Of forgetting who we are

And not knowing where we stand.

Because one day,

We gave up on each other.

And i will continue to see myself

As the black sheep,

The stray dog,

The unwanted child,

Because I was too weak

To keep pretending.

Sometimes I wish I had.

Things might be better,

If I had.

Maybe then, we could've pretended

To be living in a home,

Instead of a house,

Just for a little while longer.