The Broadmire House
This is not your house.
The night watchmen clocked in a nine, the desk was broad and heavy.
Chestnut brown scrapped up and down, the panels cracked and grimy.
At half past ten the scraping started, his eyebrow curled and raised.
He checked for life, a sign of someone, hallway and kitchen empty.
And yet somewhere he heard it still, the subtle sound of scraping.
He swore and spit and bit his tongue as night wore on with heavy hum.
He calmed himself and went around searching through and through.
All in vain to find the source, the scraping grew and grew.
With tense sweat and heavy breath, around the house he searched and went.
He cleared the attic, he checked the vent, the cobwebs bowed and swayed.
The source remained allusive still, the darkness kept away.
All the while persisted the scraping, scraping, scraping.
An awful noise, which creeped and crawled, along the ceiling and up the walls.
The muffled sound of whittling wood, wrapped in heavy cotton,
echoed long with curdled growls. The house would open up.
That noise moved in around him now, its smothering hateful love.
Into his ears, the scraping crawled and made its way around.
It grabbed him tight and held him high, the beam was just above.
Her's then, and now it was his to share as well.
No agony was greater made, this darkest spot of hell.
He swung there as the scraping dug deep and deeper still.
Burrowing with old hunger it simply couldn't kill.
Now in his ears the sound brought tears to eyes that couldn't close.
Cold blood ran through open veins and in the dark the way was made.
The scraping, scraping, scraping.
Now in the mouth, around the teeth, down the lungs, and through the feet.
Deep within the Broadmire house, around and went did he.
Father Smith grew sick and still. Blood and bone aplenty.
About the Creator
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