South Shields, UK — Poltergeist
by Dawg
South Shields clings to the shoreline,
battered by North Sea wind and rumor,
its terraced houses pressed together like secrets
beneath a cold, gray sky.
This house, at its heart, refuses to rest.
A family who woke to bruises
and threats scrawled backwards in steam on their mirrors.
Night brings its currency of dread:
sharp, sudden cold seeping through the plaster,
radiators useless against the living ice that sweeps the halls.
An invisible hand traces warnings in frost across the windows,
every syllable a curse.
A child’s toys rearranged with surgical malice,
teddy bear posed atop the lampshade,
dolls blindfolded with red ribbon,
all mocking the routines of the living.
Objects leap from shelves in choreographed chaos,
cutlery raining onto linoleum,
picture frames shattered in neat, deliberate patterns.
No prayer, no blessing, no holy water clings for long.
Here, fear compounds:
mother’s heart racing in the dark,
father’s resolve dissolving with every unexplainable bruise,
every door that locks itself against the morning.
The poltergeist feeds on the crescendo,
on the denial,
on the bone-deep certainty
that nothing–nothing–will ever be normal again.
Some nights the family flees to relatives,
terrified to return,
but the house waits, patient–
every echo a snare, every silence a challenge.
The poltergeist doesn’t rest; it evolves,
learning new tricks as the family unravels,
the haunting sharp as broken glass.
Here, in a home that chews up faith and spits out fear,
the poltergeist is both question and answer:
a force neither invited nor dismissed,
writing its legend in bruises and breathless dread.
The house endures,
carrying the story in every warped board, every chilling draft–
a monument to what the living can’t explain,
and what the darkness will never forget.