Someone has scrubbed this place down to the bone, and oh, how we admire the optimism of it. The corners smell of lemon and effort. The walls are bare and pale, wiped free of every mark the last ones left, as though a room could be talked out of remembering.
We are patient. We have already been invited in, though nobody noticed the invitation: the damp breath left on the window when they cried a little, the warm ring of coffee dried into the sill, the box of unfinished sandwiches sighing on the counter in a warmth that is exactly, precisely to our liking.
They think the apartment is empty. How touching. We are here in the seam behind the sink, in the sweet dark under the fridge where a single drop has begun its slow gathering. We are already home.
The new one walks the floors tonight, footsteps loud in all this echo, opening cupboards that smell of nothing yet. They will bring in soft things. Bread. Fruit in a bowl by the light. A wooden shelf. Sugar in a jar with an ill-fitting lid. They will wipe and wipe and call the wiping cleaning, and we do so love a diligent host, one who keeps the warmth just so and the corners just moist enough and forgets, always forgets, the underneath of things.
Sleep well, soft one. Settle in. Hang your pictures, seal your jars, believe in the newness a little longer; we would never rush you.
We are only the ones who stay after the boxes are unpacked, after the lease is up, after the lemon fades. Everything in this bright room is a gift, freely given, arriving slowly.
And we are the ones who will be here to accept it all.