the space above my ears.

House With Two Heads

You open the door to the house with two heads.

You begin in the west wing.

Up the stairs.

It's been silent since you came inside but it's getting quieter with every step up.

You feel cold because there's something unnervingly familiar about it all and you don't know why.

There's a room downward of the main gallery when you reach the top, the walls a shade of pink.

There are not any windows, and where the back wall should be, there's a sea of blackness. It branches off into another room where the ceiling descends and only children can fit on the right side.

That was done on purpose.

You don't know how you know, but you do.

You pass by thirty identical hallways, all endless, all full of doors you have no intention of opening.

However, there is one room, the only room, that doesn't have a door at all.

You peek inside curiously and see a piano. The floor is covered in mouse traps and oil, so you do not go inside.

You turn away and music begins to play behind you.

You whip your head around, but nothing is there.

You turn away again, slowly, and it bleeds back into the musty air as if its slow crescendo would prevent you from noticing.

The song freezes your spinal fluid. You have been here before.

You convince yourself it's just the ringing in your ears.

It's not. You've been here before.

You are having trouble breathing so you go outside.

You walk out, the cerulean sky in heavy contrast with the broken shell of the house.

Standing at the balcony, you inhale deeply.

There is a sour feeling settling in your sinuses.

Something is not right.

The grass is too bright a green and the playground is vacant.

You've been here too.

I'm below the balcony, approaching the front door.

You do not know I am here. I know you are here, but I'm not sure where or if you're alive.

I go inside and enter the east wing, finding myself in the kitchen.

There's a cabinet with a zip tie on it, and to get in, I must utter the code correctly on the first try.

I'm faced with two cereal boxes; one is full of tranquilizers and the other is full of eternal sleeplessness.

I can find the code and unlock the cabinet with either, but my choice will still change everything.

It depends on the night, sometimes I even roll the dice and let it choose.

I try not to think about what could have been too much.

I am happy with what I have, but there's a cherubic child holding a balloon somewhere in my psyche who keeps asking if I could have been happier.

I cannot give them an answer, though, and it's like lead in my chest.

I'm so very out of time and so very out of images.

Screw this game of hide and seek, where are you?

Which head?

While I'm looking for you, I think about what it will be like when I see you again.

I'll invite you into my room and you'll first see a calendar. There are stars on certain squares, and if you ask me what they mean, I'll explain that those are the days I need to clean out my fish tank of an imagination.

Scoop out all the grime and wipe it off on the backside of the bedroom door.

Soak the filters, but save the water so I can drop little pieces of paper inside and watch them drift lazily on the surface.

You say it sounds like a chore and maybe it is, but like I said, it's one of those things.

The seats on the plane are all taken, so if we want to escape, we just have to hold on to the wings and pray.

You are forever standing at the balcony waiting for me and I am forever going through the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen looking for you.

Every settling noise sounds like you and lights a flame of hope in my chest.

But it is never you.