You’ve always had a key to every room I own.
Before fear named me, you were there.
I never heard you knock. I let you in alone.

Corner-loiter every house.
Doorways keep your patience.
You’ve always had a key to every room I own.

I walled the noise.
You outwaited every lock.
Key before key.
I never heard you knock. I let you in alone.

I mocked you once. Cheap-thrilled. Overgrown.
Built cathedrals. You never worshipped.
You room every room.

Then quiet.
Then you.
Not threat. Presence. Bearable.
I never heard you knock. I let you in alone.

I’m older now.
Joints groan me morning.
House me smaller.
You age-rust through me. Year by year.

You’ve always had a key.

Key before key.

You room every room.

I never heard you knock.

I let you in.

Alone.


-UpsilonA 



Author's Note - 

La Camarde is my first attempt at a Liberated Grammar Villanelle, broken by design.
The form's defining feature — refrains that return whole and unchanged — is itself eroded by the poem, fracturing further with each pass until only single words remain.
The grammar doesn't just describe the takeover. It enacts it.