The echo you left on the sofahas stopped ringing,

the phone no longer

sends out ripples

and I am sonorous,

here,

bleached coral reef

and it feels like drowning.

When you bloated and burst

you flooded this house

and the damp set in,

repainted the walls with its asbestos speckle

until home stopped looking like ours

or mine.

The word warped from home

to house

to something else

to a listing in a newspaper

like the dictionary definition of alone

or Medusa

and I realised

I was just a

haunting.

© Ellora Sutton
Ellora Sutton is a 21-year-old Journalism and Creative Writing graduate currently working in a museum gift shop. Her work has been featured online and in print in: Paperfox Literary Magazine, The Cardiff Review, and Eye Flash Poetry Journal, as well as being commended in two Young Poets Network challenges, and she is currently on the longlist for The Winchester Poetry Prize. She lives in Kingsley, Hampshire.