people leave themselves behind
in strange ways

coffee stains
the grain of my table
a jacket
 holding the shape of their shoulders
nails in the walls
 where something sacred
 used to hang

some built fireplaces into me

slow amber rooms
soft rugs
windows cracked open
 to summer rain

others left floodwater

mold climbing the beams
glass in the carpet
half-finished staircases
 collapsing in the dark

for years
i called it home
 anyway

slept beside the draft
stepped over the wreckage
barefoot
without looking down

one morning
light entered
from an angle
only i could see

the house survived them
i unburied the beauty

every broken thing
stripped to the frame
every ruined room
 opened to the sky

sanded their fingerprints
from the banister
pulled rot
 from the floorboards
painted the walls in colors
 they never would have chosen

abandonment
 is not ownership

they left
i changed the locks