The Midnight House

by May Garner

Night doesn’t fall here.
It seeps –
slow as regret through the floorboards.

When the lights click off,
the house begins speaking.
Pipes whispering like teeth,
the fridge muttering its unease,
something in the walls remembering
every wound I ever carried in.

Dark isn’t absence;
it’s company.
A velvet weight pressing its questions
into my chest, against my ribs.

Where do you keep your ghosts?
What silence lives behind your breath?

Outside, a single tree
scratches at the window
like a memory begging entrance.

I don’t look.
I already know its name.

Midnight doesn’t comfort me,
it recognizes me,
the same way ruins recognize
those who stay.

I sit with it anyway,
because some truths
only speak
in the dark.

---

May Garner is an author and poet residing in rural Ohio. She has been writing for nearly fifteen years and has been sharing her writing online for over a decade. She is the author of two poetry collections, Withered Rising (2023) and Melancholic Muse (2025). Her work has appeared in Querencia Press, Cozy Ink Press, Arcana Poetry Press, Livina Press, Speckled Trout Review, among others. Find her work on Instagram (@crimson.hands).