In this house of breathless air
Where silence stays like a guest
Tales untold beneath the floor
Bones in bags, a life repressed
Cups for two, but one still full
Empty eyes in borrowed skin
Smiles that fade by morning light
All gone quiet, deep within
You stayed a while
You stayed too long
They never screamed
They sang my song
I watched you fade, like all the rest
Just needed someone to confess
No one left to tell the tale
Flat 23D, private hell
They came for comfort, coin, or cause
The lost, the bruised, the strayed
I offered tea, a sofa bed—
A place their ghosts could stay
Drains that wept and fires that fed
The dog still sniffed the air
Photographs without a name
Ashes thick with wear
You stayed a while, you stayed too long
They never screamed
They sang my song
I watched you fade, like all the rest
Just needed someone to confess
No one left to speak the truth
Just a page torn out of youth
"It started with kindness
Then something broke"
"Loneliness, it festers
You know"
"I'd sit them in the chair
And we'd talk like friends"
"Until the silence swallowed
Them whole"
Can't explain what no one sees
Sympathy stinks when it's diseased
Boil the flesh, bleach the past
Flush the truth, forget them fast
Once a face, now just a name
Filed away, all just the same
The pipes complain but never shout
No neighbours asking what I'm about
A quiet man in council walls
The deathless guest
Who makes no calls
You stayed a while, you stayed too long
They never screamed
They sang my song
I watched you fade, like all the rest
Just needed someone to confess
I never meant to keep you here
But silence always draws me near
