The House On 13th Street

I return to the house every day, just as I always have.

It sits on the corner of Thirteenth and Badger, a tired skeleton of what it once was. The white paint flakes like dry skin. The porch sags on the right side, where Daddy used to stack firewood every fall. The windows are boarded up now, but I still know them by heart—the one in Mama's room with the pink curtains, the one in mine that faced the street, where I used to press my forehead against the glass and watch the rain run like tears.

The grass is high, swallowing the walkway, like the earth’s trying to reclaim it. I like to imagine the flowers Mama once planted are still under there somewhere, sleeping.

I sit on the porch swing, though it doesn’t swing anymore. The chains creak when I shift, and that alone is enough. I listen. To the wind. To the groan of the trees. To the silence.

Inside the house, time hangs in the air like smoke.

The front door sticks like it always did. I push it open and step into what’s left of the living room. The walls are blackened and cracked, the ceiling bowed. But in my mind, everything is as it was. The blue couch sits crooked near the window, one arm sagging like it’s tired of waiting. The coffee table still has the chip from when my sister tried to stand on it in tap shoes. The scent of lemon cleaner still lingers. Or maybe it’s just memory playing tricks on me.

I drift through the house, letting my fingers graze the walls. In the hallway, the pictures are gone, but I can see them as clear as ever. Me in pigtails. My sister, missing her front teeth. Mama holding us both, her head tilted, eyes closed like she was memorizing the moment.

I pause in my old bedroom. The posters have curled and burned away, but I see them anyway—Brandy, Aaliyah, that one picture of Destiny’s Child where they all wore denim. The carpet crunches underfoot, scorched and brittle, but I don’t feel it.

In my sister’s room, the ceiling is caved in. But I can still trace the outline of the stars she used to stick above her bed. Every night she’d lie there and whisper her wishes to them. She told me once she wished for a puppy, and again that she wished Mama and Daddy would stop fighting.

Sometimes I find myself whispering to those same invisible stars.

I walk through the kitchen, even though the floor is unstable. There’s a soft groan beneath me as I step over the place where the refrigerator once stood. I reach for a cabinet door that isn’t there anymore. Open. Close. Muscle memory. Sometimes I hum while I do it. One of Mama’s tunes. One of those songs without words.

Sometimes I wonder what the neighbors thought of us back then. Before the fire. Before the silence. I wonder if they ever heard the laughter—Mama's soft giggle when Daddy kissed her neck, my sister's wild shrieks when we played tag in the yard. We weren’t perfect, but we were real. We were trying. I think that matters. Sometimes, when the wind moves just right, I swear I can hear that laughter again—like it’s stitched into the air itself. Like the house is trying to remind me: even in ruin, even in ash, joy lived here once.

I spend most of the day here. Just… being. The hours pass like clouds, slow and formless.

Every now and then, someone walks by. Most don’t notice me. Or maybe they pretend not to. Some quicken their pace, clutching their bags or their children. I don’t blame them. I know I must look strange, just sitting there on a porch that shouldn't be solid anymore.

Once, a boy with a green bike stopped in front of the house. He stared at me with wide eyes. I raised a hand to wave, and he waved back, slow and unsure. His mother came running from the end of the block, her voice sharp as glass. She yanked him by the arm and hissed, “We don’t stop here. Keep going.” He looked back at me. I smiled. He didn’t smile back.

I wanted to tell her I’m not dangerous. I’m just homesick.

Sometimes I hear voices. Whispers in the walls. Laughter in the wind. Or maybe it’s just what’s left of the life we lived here. An echo that doesn’t know how to fade.

There was a fire.

I don’t remember how it started. One minute I was brushing my teeth, and the next there was smoke curling under the door like fingers. The hallway glowed orange. I heard Mama yelling. I heard Daddy pounding up the stairs. My sister was already coughing.

I tried to open my door. I remember that clearly. I wrapped my hand in a T-shirt and touched the knob—it was hot, too hot, and I screamed. I don’t remember what happened next. Only that everything felt loud. Sirens. Cracking wood. Mama screaming my name from somewhere far, far away.

And then—nothing.

Just darkness.

And now this.

This routine. This returning.

Every day I come back, as if coming back will undo it. As if walking through this house like it's still standing will bring them back too.

I hear people talk about the house sometimes. They say it’s cursed. That it should be bulldozed. That no one’s been able to sell the land. Too many stories. Too many chills up the spine.

I just smile.

The funny thing about death is—it doesn’t always feel final. Sometimes it feels like waiting. Like sitting on a porch swing that no longer swings, listening to a song no one else can hear.

And still—I return. Like clockwork. Like muscle memory.

Because this is my home.

Because love, real love, ties you to a place.

Even when the place is no longer real.

The house burned down seven years ago.

But I never left.

Ghosts don’t forget the address of love.