Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Chilling Shivers to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
The new apartment had a vent above the bedroom door,
That breathed a tiny whisper when the night grew still and raw.
At first I thought it was the wind, or pipes that groaned with age,
But the whisper had a cadence, like a voice that turned a page.
It said my name, so softly, in the hour before the dawn,
And it listed all the secrets I had hidden and withdrawn.
I taped it up with cardboard, I stuffed it up with cloth,
But the whisper only thinned and slid right through it, like a moth.
I called the landlord Monday, and he turned a shade of grey,
He said, no tenant stays a month, the last one went away.
There's a whisper in the vent tonight, and it's calling out my name,
And it's saying, one more secret, and then you'll be the same.
Poet of Chilling Shivers · Hear it on the channel ↗
Commentary
A vent in a new apartment is the last place a person expects a voice. In this poem, the whisper knows the speaker’s name and every secret, and it is not the first voice the home has kept.
The vent “above the bedroom door” breathes “a tiny whisper.” At first the speaker blames “the wind” and “pipes that groaned with age,” but the whisper has “a cadence, like a voice that turned a page.” It says the speaker’s name “in the hour before the dawn” and lists “all the secrets I had hidden and withdrawn.”
Taping “it up with cardboard” and stuffing “it up with cloth” does nothing, for the whisper “slid right through it, like a moth.” The landlord “turned a shade of grey” and admits “no tenant stays a month.” Tonight the vent says, “one more secret, and then you’ll be the same.”