House of Crumbling Veins

By Dr. Teedzani Thapelo

upon the hill, where shadows creep,
a house awakens, never asleep.

its shingles curl, like brittle bone,
its walls moan softly, a hollow tone.

windows gape, unblinking eyes,
reflecting pallor of ashen skies.

the air within is stale and thick,
a charnel breath, fetid and sick.

the stairs sag low, their joints decayed,
steps of marrow, dimly splayed.

each creak is a whisper, a harrowed plea,
echoing through eternity.

flesh-coloured vines twist the rail,
a labyrinth of sinew, brittle and frail.

the wallpaper peels, its pattern obscene,
shapes of tumours, grotesque and unclean.

the mirrors bleed in liquid streaks,
they weep with rot, their silver leaks.

the rooms are prisons of blackened sprawl,
their emptiness echoes a final call.

and then—it stirs, that monstrous core,
behind the threshold, a hidden door.

it breathes; the house itself contracts,
a lung diseased, its rhythm laxed.

bursting forth in a wretched tide,
a figure lumbers, grim and wide.

its face, a patchwork of flesh and blight,
eyes aglow with malignant light.

its hands are claws, its mouth a grin,
of broken teeth and blood within.

“i am you,” it hisses, “your silent guest,
your shadowed burden, your final test.”

i falter, heart pounding, despairing gaze,
lost in the beast’s insidious maze.

yet something stirs—a quiet refrain,
a glimmer of strength amidst the pain.

i step forward, though knees do quake,
through waves of terror, a choice i make.

to face the beast, this vessel of strife,
the spectre born of a fractured life.

it snarls, it lunges, it claws the air,
but i meet its wrath with a steady stare.

“i see you,” i whisper, “my foe, my plight,
you will not own me, not tonight.”

the house groans louder, a funeral hymn,
its walls collapse, the edges dim.

and in its rubble, i kneel, relieved,
acceptance born of what i’ve grieved.

the beast dissolves into shadows thin,
the battle fought, the healing within.

the house is gone; the hill lies bare,
under the sky, i breathe fresh air.

no longer haunted, the weight subsides,
the ruin within now quietly abides.

though scars remain, they softly gleam,
a testament to this waking dream.

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Teedzani Thapelo is a poet and novelist. He has been recognized by the Share Botswana Tourism Fiction Award (2017); Botswana Society for Human Development, Gaborone and was a Share Botswana Tourism Fiction Award (2019) winner. Thapelo is the author of Seasons of Thunder (2020), 2nd Edition, Ironmantle Books, Virginia, USA. His poem, “Okavango Delta’’ (2017), was published in the Botswana poetry collection 36 Kisses and Other Stories, Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nascali Publishers, Gaborone and his poem “Dry Heart’’ (2019), appeared in in Blue Train, Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nescali Publishers, Gaborone.