Floorboards groaned in welcome as I entered—
not from age but from memory
Walls exhaled the ghosts of laughter I once belonged to
I felt younger and older at the same time
Dust settled like soft apologies on forgotten shelves
Light stretched across the room
slow forgiving almost maternal
The house remembered what I survived
A door creaked open without touch—
an invitation not a haunting
My echo returned to me in gentle fragments
like an old friend trying not to overwhelm
When I finally sat on the worn wooden step
the house sighed with me
Not as a shelter—
as a witness