my best memories come from a haunted house,
and the hours spent falling in love with the dust 
and the siren sounds. 
and the enormity of the echoes that followed. 

my best memories come from a summer that was bookended by sad songs and iced tea and houses made under oak trees, two kids desperate for shade,
ten secrets that i promised to keep and never tell. 

one secret that now eats me alive.

the house grew as i did, 
the paint chipped when my first tooth fell out,
and when i grew three inches in sixth grade the wood started to rot. 
and i wonder if by now it would be ruins,
but i don't have the guts to go back to it. 

home was haunted by a ghost i felt but never saw,
scratching at the back of my throat,

clawing to be free. 

my best memories are best found buried behind peeled floral wallpaper,
written out in chicken scratch,
a desperate attempt to get rid of my sixteenth year.