Under the Stairs It Waits

Under the Stairs It Waits

There is a space beneath the stairs,

Where light forgets to stay,

Where dust hangs thick like something living,

That does not drift away.

As children we were told in whispers,

Do not look and do not speak,

For something listens in that darkness,

Patient, slow, and weak.

But weak things grow when left unspoken,

They fatten on your dread,

They learn the shape of every heartbeat,

They nest inside your head.

At night it moved, I heard it shifting,

A scrape, a careful slide,

As if it dragged its weight in silence,

With nowhere left to hide.

I tried to laugh, to call it nothing,

Just pipes, or wood, or air,

Yet every night it came much closer,

To the edge of being there.

One night I knelt, I do not know why,

And pressed my eye to black,

The dark looked back, I swear it saw me,

And something leaned me back.

No face, no form, no clear intention,

Just hunger without end,

The kind that does not need a body,

The kind you cannot mend.

It knew my name without me speaking,

It breathed it soft and wrong,

As though my name had always belonged there,

As though I stayed too long.

Now every stair above me creaks slow,

Though no one walks above,

And something waits for me to listen,

Like it is learning love.

I do not go near that hollow,

I do not dare to stare,

But sometimes in the quiet hours,

I feel it climb the stairs.

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