This poem is based on the article “Murder House” at Equator, which tells the story of the American Dream gone wrong for two intelligent Chinese immigrants and generated much online discussion back in China.

The house dreamed itself perfect
with gleaming floors, white-brick smiles,
lawns kept trim and proper;
the fine print buried under elegant styles.

Inside, where rooms rehearse their lines:
promotion, bonuses, closing dates,
framed certificates, all little mirrors,
where “success” smoothed small mistakes.

Every door required a password,
every hallway became a funnel,
narrowing toward a single shining point
that lay at the end of the tunnel.

These dreams have their plumbing,
and somewhere underground
the pipes groan under pressure
until release is finally found.

The fairy tale of the bedroom,
turned on itself, 180 degrees;
love then became a ledger,
an audit brought to its bloodied knees.

A carefully budgeted future
splits along an invisible seam,
reckoning never knocks –
it’s built into the dream.

Outside, notifications soon circled
like headlines on a brand new day,
strangers pressed their faces
to the windows of the dream’s display.

Seeing not two people
but an x-ray of their own bargains:
what they traded sleep for –
“making it” with manicured gardens.

So, when the dream stood naked
under the fluorescent light of attention:
all the glittering milestones lined up
a bargain of murderous intention.

Reckoning is not thunder
but the moment the sun returns,
after the party, the scattered trash
collected, quietly burns.

The lawn keeps growing over,
as if to bury the past,
like nothing happened at all,
because nothing was built to last.

Inside the dream, he still sits
on the edge of his broken bed,
finally out of excuses,
reflecting on everything left unsaid.

Staring at his red reflection,
realising the story he’d been sold
had never been built
for this much truth to hold.