Lyric

I found the step before the light came on

The old wood gave under my shoe

Not like a greeting, not like a warning

Just something that already knew

The door had swollen in the winter rain

Paint lifting close to the frame

I stood there holding my breath too long

Like the house might say my name

Inside, the rooms had learned new silence

Pictures leaned away from the sun

The Porch Remembered My Weight

Before anybody called me in

Before the hall could make me smaller

Before I had to be their son again

A pair of boots dried by the heater

Not mine, but near my old place

A coat I didn’t recognize

Hung where I used to leave my shape

Voices moved behind the kitchen wall

Careful, tired, almost kind

I knew the words they’d use for dinner

But not the years they kept behind

Nothing had broken loudly

Still, nothing stood the same

I put my hand against the railing

Felt the grain beneath my skin

Some doors keep letting you enter

Long after you no longer fit in

Maybe leaving is not a line

Maybe it happens board by board

In the mail nobody forwards

In the room that isn’t yours

So I stayed there in the doorway

Half outside, half understood

A grown man wearing borrowed weather

On the threshold of childhood