There's a baritone color to the upstairs rooms, the papered smell of birds flying. Under the floorboards someone is preparing for eternity, an incomplete occupation at best. The cupboards are suddenly crowded with shattered green glass. A vine winds the iron staircase, despairing. You kneel upon an opened book, feel this misunderstood, beside yourself, bedside-mannered and cautioned to look into a mirror.
Nothing disappears faster than the face.
Right now you are as close as the cold, filling the bathtub with your falling-out white hair. Hear yourself breathe. Madness is immaterial but it can borrow you a door to the next world leaving no witnesses. Keep it in the family, keep it to yourself. You are your own grave company at last.