Never Alone

A killer is haunted by his buried victim until he becomes the next knocking ghost.

I confess

though the candle trembles small

My heart once reveled in a wicked fall.

A deed so dark it still chills my skull...

Yet I smiled, smug, certain

certain, certain of all.

For I buried my sin where no light dared pry,

Deep under floorboards brittle and dry.

And the world moved onward, none wiser than I

A murderer masked by a courteous lie.

But on the night when my triumph felt sweet,

When the silence bowed low at my wandering feet,

A knock arrived: soft, steady, discreet

A rhythm too patient, too perfect, too neat.

"Good evening," he called with a grave, gentle tone,

"Are you alone in that house of your own?"

I answered too quickly, more sharply than shown:

"Yes, I am alone."

(Though my bones seemed to groan.)

He paused... and then whispered, "Be sure of the claim.

For liars invite what they cannot tame."

Then footsteps retreated, yet somehow remained

A presence still pressing the doorframe like shame.

Night after night, at the fall of the gloom,

His knock would return, filling corners with doom.

"Are you alone?" he'd breathe through the room

While shadows grew long like the stretch of a tomb.

Each time I replied, "Yes! leave me be!"

And each time he warned in a voice calm as sea:

"Tell me the truth, or the truth tells me.

Be certain, certain, your soul is not free."

I barred every window, locked every door;

Still, the knock crept closer than ever before.

A scrape on the hall, a hush on the floor

As though he were inside a moment before.

Then one midnight, the air turned cold,

A silence too sharp, too heavy to hold.

The knocking stopped

and a voice, controlled,

Said, "I know your secret.

I know what you stole."

My breath collapsed. My lantern dimmed.

Every heartbeat faltered, every chance grew slim.

He whispered, "You lied, and lies grow grim.

Let me show you what lies within."

A shape appeared by the wavering wall

Not flesh, not shadow, not human at all

But the soul I had silenced, beginning to crawl...

Its presence familiar,

certain, certain of all.

Eyes empty of life, yet burning with knowing,

Lips stitched with dirt, yet silently showing

Every sin I had thought would stay in its stowing

A specter of guilt, inexorably growing.

The stranger sighed softly, "You see, he is here.

You claimed you were lonely. I knew you were near

To madness itself, fed by terror and fear.

No man is alone when the dead persevere."

I staggered backward, too late to flee

For the ghost stepped forward, reaching for me.

My lungs froze stiff as a winterbound sea;

My crime had returned to claim its fee.

Then the stranger smiled, neither cruel nor kind,

A figure too patient, too ancient in mind.

"You were never alone," he said, refined,

"For murder leaves footprints

No floorboard can bind."

And as my vision flickered thin,

I felt the truth seep deep within

A tragic peace in my mortal sin,

As darkness welcomed me in.

Now I knock on doors where guilt runs raw,

Where men hide secrets in shadows they draw,

And whisper the question that ends them all

"Are you alone?"

(Though I already saw.)

For I walk with the dead, through the velvet sprawl,

A weary pilgrim of the sinners' thrall

And I am

certain, certain of all.