Doors, Floors, etc.

I lived so much of my former life behind doors.

Behind closed doors. Locked doors.

Doors designed to be thick enough to muffle the sounds of life behind them.

Doors designed to minimize the amount of light that could pass through or around them.

Doors that shut me in, locked me up, locked me out.

Doors I didn’t look at, listen at, knock on.
Doors I didn’t walk through.

And now I live in this house, this old house, the oldest house I have ever breathed in.
The oldest house I have ever breathed in.
The oldest house I have ever dreamt in,
cared for,
abused.

I live in this house, which is so old that the door frames are crooked, and uncaring,
whose doorframes do not allow for me to live closed and sheltered and protected from prying eyes, prying ears,
not even in the shower,
this house that has opened me to the world.

Outside of this house there is a wealth of experience that I can feel even here, in the floor boards – even in the floorboards which are covered by some kind of new laminate substance -- I wonder how many children grew up in this house, how many winters passed huddled by the fireplace which is boarded up and which no longer can be imagined to be like a door.

I wonder how long before the rest of this place is boarded up and forgotten – how many more generations of people like me can really live here,

who breathe in the change and wonder

and who wonder what comes next.