These are the steps to our home. The seven steps to heaven. This is the window. A window to the world, looking out to you. This is the carved door I leaned on, to keep you in. This is the lounge of our reverie. Secret dreams of lazy lovers. This is the bed of our enrapture, that brought us together, kept us together. This is the floor, veined like the lines of fate. This is the nook, your own private space. A dark place forbidden to the world. Forbidden to me. Your forked tongue. Serpent of Eden. Wrapped around the beam, its coil around your lean neck. Your feet in the air, swaying to the slow rhythm of the earth. An ascending angel. My mind fills the emptiness. In the lightning I see your shadow by the curtain. The gale letting you in through the door. The windows weeping in the rain. The rustle of the sheets. The cold floor. The haunting sound of silence. Now I know why people desert homes, looking back, never to return.