Dwelling

Meghan Bennet

It’s a town full of haunted attics. 

Spiders in bathtubs.  

Shadows at ends of beds 

that vanish with the light.  

 

Goosebumps that never quite go away. 

Cold spots in every room 

like you’re just moving from one ghost 

to the next. 

 

Sometimes you go on walks in the middle of the night, 

down past the campus, 

following the echoes of the bell tower 

that hasn’t rung in ages. 

 

You start to wonder if the people here  

aren’t haunted, too.  

If that’s why no one ever seems to leave. 

If that’s why you can’t remember  

 

the last time you dreamed. 

Because the dead don’t sleep. 

Or the living can’t wake.  

Because the footsteps up above never quiet.