Palimpsest

The old house remembers in its creaking boards, in the particular slant of afternoon light crossing the floorboards like a burnt offering.

Each layer of paint—mint, cream, sage, white— breathes under the new surface, a history written in the language of color and time.

The wallpaper peels in corners like petals, revealing the geometry beneath: flowers that bloomed when someone else lived here,

loved here, ached here, their fingerprints still pressed into the doorframe, still singing in the walls at dusk.