This house - Rachel Young

Walls. A roof. A door with hinges and a dull knob.

Windows, rooms, furniture. 

This is a house. A place where people live. Just people. 

This is a house. Not a home. 

How could it be when the people inside are not a family. 

They may be related by blood, but that's as far as the connection goes. 

Walls with pictures of smiling faces that lie. 

Doors with hinges broken from heavy slamming.

How can you be a family when you have no idea your daughter is crying on the bathroom floor. 

But she is quiet, her tears are stifled and muted.

While she may be in pain, there's nothing worse than the idea that her family might know she is suffering.

Cause that would only be a sign of weakness.

And god, that's so pathetic.

How is this a home when there is only silence, no laughter, no gestures of love or appreciation.

How is this a home when there is no sound more familiar than that of a sigh behind a closed door.

At least in the night it's acceptable to hide away in private rooms, where arguments and shouts are muffled by dry wall and darkness.

No one pays any mind. After all, we're supposed to be asleep.

Mornings are tense, the demons illuminated in new sunlight.

No amount of makeup or coffee or a head dipped low into the Sunday paper can mask the grievances from the nights before. 

No amount of shrubbery, no white picket fence or freshly painted window panes can hide this structure for what it really is.
This is a house. 

Not a home.

There is a door, scuffed floorboards, sun-paled window frames.
This is a place where people live. Just people.
People in a building under the facade of a home.