Staircase

She often wakes up
in the middle of the night.
listens to the silence
surrounding of the big house
filled to its brim with her dreams.
She moves and tosses on
the huge bed meant for two
but which mostly remains
empty, as others have entered
their own protected world,

since with each passing year,
men, women and children,
all grow up and find 
their own world of solitude.
Her mind, in such moments of
being with her own self, goes to
the ground floor, where she knows,

awaits her soul, her own reflection,

where she can stand naked 
and bare.
Slowly she climbs down from her
bed and tip toes near the staircase
and looks down.
The dimly lit landing awaits her
foot steps, and beyond that, a semi
darkened room, in which a single
night lamp softly glows in anticipation
of her union with her own soul. As she moves
near the first few steps, she holds on to the
railing and stops. She cannot move any 
further as this strange feeling of being
watched, creeps into her and pulls
her back, as if, allowed to go ahead,
she will fall, missing
the steps, down on to the ground floor.
She stands there for a long time,
looking at the room at the end of
the staircase, and smiles, thinking
that she will come back once again
tomorrow, when the house will be
sleeping again.
This goes on every night, when she 
sleep walks till the top of the 
staircase, and then senses prevent her
from falling down at the last moment
as if by a mystery mechanism, she survives
a fall and goes back to sleep
and the whole house breaths a huge
sigh of relief.
But unknown to everyone,
at the bottom of the staircase,
await a room
and a love story never told.