The attic creaks with secrets it will trade for stillness —
dolls frozen in porcelain, mouths screaming without sound,
poses locked mid-dream from some long-expired afternoon.
She was called Clara. She vanished in lace and bloodstained white.
Daddy claimed she ran. Mama drank until she couldn’t see.
But the dolls kept coming — each one wearing her eyes,
each one listing crooked at the edge of something waiting.
They shift when no one’s looking, hands twitching in the dark.
A ballerina missing both feet. A bride with a nail through her face.
One clutches a photograph tucked behind her stolen heart.
One turns toward you slowly when you’ve convinced yourself you’re alone.
The wind hums lullabies through throats that never healed.
Every footstep on that floor cracks open what’s buried.
Be careful what you stare at — some horrors don’t hide.
They doll you up pretty, paint your lips red,
twist you backward until your soul kinks like string.
You walked in as a visitor. You’ll leave as something else —
a pretty thing behind glass, smiling for the crypt,
never asking what the dolls are made from.