There is a house

I have never seen,

but somehow

I know the way there.

It stands beyond the last road,

where the trees grow wild

and the wind has forgotten

how to knock.

No one lives there,

or perhaps everyone does.

Inside,

there are rooms filled with mornings

that never happened,

windows holding sunsets

from forgotten years,

and a staircase

made entirely of old possibilities.

I imagine walking through it slowly.

In the first room,

I find the life I almost lived.

There is a suitcase by the door,

a ticket with my name on it,

and photographs

of places I was too afraid to visit.

I don't stay long.

In the second room

are all the words

I swallowed.

They hang from the ceiling

like paper birds.

Some say I love you.

Some say I forgive you.

Some simply say

I needed help.

I reach for one,

but it flies away.

In the third room

I find my younger self.

She is sitting on the floor,

drawing windows

onto blank walls.

She looks at me

without surprise.

“You took your time,”

she says.

I sit beside her.

For once,

I don't try to explain.

We simply draw.

A window for courage.

A door for change.

A garden for all the things

we thought would never grow.

Then she asks me

the question I have spent years avoiding:

“Are you happy?”

I look around the room.

At the unfinished paintings.

At the empty chairs.

At the sunlight

falling across the floor.

And I tell her the truth.

“Not every day.”

She smiles.

“Good,” she says.

“Then you are still alive.”

Outside,

the wind begins to rise.

The house grows quieter.

I realize

I cannot stay forever.

So I leave the younger version of me

one final drawing.

A door.

Not to the past.

Not to some perfect future.

Just a door

leading somewhere unknown.

She takes my hand

before I go.

“Will you come back?”

I turn toward the road.

“I don't know.”

And maybe that is enough.

Because life has never promised

to show us the whole map.

Sometimes

all we are given

is a door,

a little courage,

and one beautiful reason

to step through it.