The House That held Her

By Anshul Purvia

I remember the first time she walked in.
She was happy and so was I.
She entered with a glow on her face,
like fresh paint on my walls.
Her eyes were shining,
brighter than the lights reflecting off me.
Sweet songs used to flow here,
making the curtains dance in the cool breeze.
She danced barefoot on the floor, listening to her favourite songs,
and talked to plants like they’d answer.
She made me feel like home.

But time shifted.
He used to come in with a heart full of poison,
smiles and white lies for the neighbors,
fists and abuses for her.

I saw the change in her before anyone else did.
I heard it in the way she whispered to herself.
Her songs turned into sighs.
And the light that once made my walls glow,
began to flicker like a bulb whose end is near.
The footsteps grew quiet,
and fear turned the breeze into storms.

I remember the first slap.
The sound echoed through my walls,
sharp and sour, like lightning striking.
She didn’t scream.
She stopped smiling forever.
I felt her knees go weak, her body tremble,
as she leaned against the sink.
She looked up at my ceiling,
as if asking me for an answer.

But I was as helpless as she was.
I’m just bricks and cement.
I hold, I carry, I keep.
I cannot stop him. I cannot scream.

She cleaned her wounds in the same mirror,
where she once fixed her makeup.
Day by day,
the mirror watched her disappear.

No one asked her why she wore long sleeves in summer.
No one noticed her bruises.
But I did.
I watched her cover pain like shame.
I listened to her rehearse lies in the bathroom. 
“I’m fine.”
“It’s nothing.”
“He didn’t mean it.”
“He loves me.”

Sometimes, she’d cry in the corner,
like she didn’t want even me to see.
But I have walls, so I listened.
I always listen to everything.

Nights were the worst.
He’d come home angry, all drunk,
and make her feel so small with his words.
He threw a vase at her, it almost hit her.
He twisted her wrist until it nearly broke.
He hit her like a punching bag.
And she never fought back.

I trembled during those nights.
My walls cracked quietly,
wishing I could collapse over him,
bury him in the foundation,
where he belonged.
But I stood still.
Because that’s what houses do.
We stand.
Even as the ones inside us fall apart.

There was a time she didn’t sleep at all, 
only stared out the window,
as if zoning out, 
could unlock her soul.
She wrote poems on the backs of grocery bills,
and hid them in my cupboards.
Little scraps of pain.
I kept every one.

And then came the night he nearly killed her.
I felt her blood soak into the white embroidered carpet.
I felt her bones rattle as she crawled to the door.
And I hated myself, 
for not being more than brick and cement.

But she stayed.
She always stayed.
For love.
For fear.
For reasons that ache beyond explanation, 
and some things that I can’t understand.

But now, she’s gone.
One day, she left with no goodbye.
She did everything she could do.
But now there is only silence.
He stayed here for a while, 
alone, angry, drunk again, shouting at walls,
that don't care anymore.
Then he left too.

Now I sit empty.
Windows boarded.
Walls cracked.
A ghost without a body.

People say I feel cold.
They say I creak at night.
They call me cursed.

But I am not cursed.
I am grieving.

I am the house that held her.
I heard what no one else did.
I watched her die,
without ever being buried.

And I will remember her,
long after the world forgets.

So if you ever walk past me,
and feel a shiver in your spine, 
don’t call it haunted.

Call it pain.

Because pain has echoes,
and silence has weight.
And somewhere, not far from here,
another house is listening, 
to another woman breaking, 
behind closed doors.