Somewhere a door is still open because I never went back to close it.

Somewhere a door is still open

because I never went back to close it.

I keep a key on my ring

for a lock that's been changed twice since.

People ask where I'm from

and I give them a city, a street,

a number — not an answer,

just coordinates for a place

that stopped being mine

the day someone else's coat

hung on my hook by the door.

Home, it turns out,

was never the walls.

It was the specific creak

on the third stair,

the smell of one particular winter,

my mother's voice

saying my name

in a kitchen that doesn't exist

in that arrangement anymore.

I have lived in four cities since.

I have called each one home

the way you call a stranger "friend"

to make the room less lonely.

Somewhere, that door is still open.

I think I keep it that way on purpose —

so some part of me

never has to admit

I'm not coming back.