the walls breathe in
but don't breathe out
with bated breath
i watch and wait
and tickle them
to make them laugh
the house's lungs
breathe free again

and the mirror
not her waking,
aching body showed,
but endless forms,
from feathered fractal
edges spilling out
a snowstorm
swirling silent
in her eyes
the walls breathe in
but don't breathe out
with bated breath
i watch and wait
and tickle them
to make them laugh
the house's lungs
breathe free again
Lovely and evocative! It reminds me just a little of The Tower from Annihilation.
annihilation was a source of inspiration for this story (as well as a hypnogogic hallucination we had once)
we often describe it to others as "hot in the way annihilation is hot"
edit: we thought your comment was on a different post ("the tower") and weren't paying attention whoops, the inspiration for this post is quite different
ah it's funny I saw that post right after commenting and was... pleasantly surprised? I'm not sure how to describe the synchronicity of it
it's safe to say honestly that the southern reach trilogy is a big inspiration for most of our writing, often in indirect/stylistic/thematic ways
those books do a evocative job exploring and depicting altered states of mind, irrational thoughts, hallucinations and dreams, identity alteration, and the tantalizing and mind-consuming nature of the nonhuman world,
all of which are recurring themes in our writing
this one, "the walls", is inspired by a recurring hallucination/perceptual distortion we sometimes experience, where it looks like walls and similar surfaces are breathing verry subtly
but sometimes they stop mid-breath, and it makes us on edge