poem: the house that haunts you/the house that you haunt

a sestina that is more of a ghost story than anything else

hi everyone! happy halloween!

to celebrate, i thought i would send out this poem i wrote back in 2021 for my creative writing class. it’s a sestina, which means the last word of each lines follows a strict pattern. if you’re interested in learning more about sestinas and their format, you can check out this website!

despite writing this sometime in spring 2021, i was in the mood for something spooky, and eventually came up with the haunted house theme (i was also reading house of leaves at the time, which may have contributed). i remember struggling with this poem, mainly because of the strict format. it’s difficult to write a poem where every line has to end with a certain word, and those same six words have to get used over and over again. i tried a few different approaches this poem, but liked this one the best. the six words i picked out were house, door, be, person, ghost, and haunted.

i also recently edited this poem, as i submitted it to my university’s literary magazine, and they gave me some critiques/potential edits i could make, which ended up being extremely useful! i think the poem works even better, and i’m now more excited to show it off.

(p.s. for the best formatting, i’d recommend reading this on desktop! it’s still not perfect due to some substack quirks, but it may seem jumbled on mobile.)

i hope you like the house that haunts you/the house that you haunt: a sestina.

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the sky is dark, and you are standing in front of an old, forgotten house, 
hovering at the edge of a stone path that leads, winding, to the door. 
you don’t know why you’re here. it’s an odd place to be. 
the door is open, and silhouetted in the doorway is a person. 
no, sorry—not a person. a ghost. 
right, of course. you forgot this house was haunted. 

you don’t like admitting that this place is haunted, 
but you are here now, and in front of you is that accursed house. 
you take a step forward. the movement is mirrored by the ghost. 
a chill runs like mouse feet down your spine, and you take a step away from the door. 
the ghost doesn’t move, but you are not a ghost. you are a person.  
you are a person, right? you take a step and feel the ground. you’re a person. you must be. 

the silhouette glares, and there’s a burning behind your eyes. (you must be.) 
how odd, you think, that pain should come with being haunted
or perhaps it is that the spirit does not feel pain, but you do—because you’re a person.  
you walk closer, then, closer to the looming house 
with its watching windows and yawning door. 
you walk through the doorway. you can’t see the ghost. 

in the morning, you wake up next to a ghost, 
laying beside you, clear as can be— 
but then you blink, startled, and it's gone. you blink, and again you’re by the door, 
and you remember you used to be scared of being haunted. 
around you, there are groans and creaks from the tiring house
as it settles in, closer and closer, and you wonder how much of it used to be a person, 

too. the floorboards ripple underneath like the tide, and you insist you are a person, 
though perhaps in this moment it would be easier to be a ghost;
to walk through walls and escape the wrath of this house, 
to drift inches above the ground, to force the house to leave you be. 
to choose to haunt, to refuse to be the haunted. 
you consider this as the house warps around you, and behind you, there is a door. 

you grasp at walls and find nothing, and behind you there remains that same door.
the house is slowly tearing itself apart, and perhaps it’s overrated, being a person— 
perhaps it would be nice, to not allow yourself anymore to be haunted. 
perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, to be a ghost. 
of course, you might not find out. you might instead simply cease to be. 
there is a deep rumble, a rattle in your bones, and inward crumples the house. 

are you still haunted? well, did you step through the door? 
so was the house a person? or was the person a house?

(perhaps this story has no ending. no answer. perhaps it must be left as simply a ghost.)

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thank you for reading!

some fall foliage

i hope you all have a wonderful and spooky halloween, and i will see you again soon!

becca 🎃
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