Amidst the black mold and sagging ceiling, I stand—an unwelcome squatter in this forsaken place. The awful stench of mildew and sweat hangs heavily in the air, A filthy mix of decay that mirrors the rot within me. Cockroaches scuttle across the cracked linoleum, their tiny legs tracing patterns of desperation. Broken beer bottles litter the floor, their shattered remains glinting up at me like broken promises. The once white carpet is now scarred by the stains of countless footsteps. Footsteps of all the lost souls who have slept here. Footsteps of people like me.

I look around at the rest of the junkies who surround me – those hollow-eyed souls draped over sagging couches. My heart aches with the realization of what we truly are. For we are now just mere echoes of humanity. I study all of them one by one. Their skin, pale and marked by the scars of addiction, mirrors my own fractured spirit. I watch them as they lounge, shrunken into themselves. cocooned in a haze of chemical oblivion. Their laughter, if it can be called that, is a clashing melody. Nothing more than a mockery of joy.

I trace the peeling wallpaper with my fingertips. It’s faded floralpattern is a relic of better days. The walls, like my heart and soul, are weary and full of holes. They, like myself, are on the verge of collapse. The ceiling sags, as if the heavens themselves weep for what once was. And I, too, weep—for the girl I used to be, for the dreams abandoned like this house.

Numbness settles over me, a thick fog that blurs the edges of reality. I am broken, just like the knotted-out souls who surround me. Their eyes, vacant and bloodshot, hold no judgment. Perhaps they recognize a lost spirit—the wreckage of hope, the debris of a battle lost. or perhaps they don’t see me at all. After all, I am but a ghost among the living.

As I stand here, I wonder: Can a place absorb the pain of its inhabitants? Can walls bear witness to shattered dreams? Or is it merely a reflection—an illusion that blurs the boundaries between the external and the internal? I am both the abandoned house and the girl within it, crumbling yet resilient, lost yet still standing. And perhaps, in this shared brokenness, there lies a strange kinship—a silent understanding that binds us all. 🏚️💔