The Doorbell Button

The other day I started thinking about what it would be like to go home. Not the one you live in now, but the one you lived in as a kid, when everything seemed to be right, when you knew that all you had to do was walk through the door and everything would be okay. Everything the world could throw at you would be deflected. What if you could walk back into that place, the place that held your heart, your dreams of the future, and your feelings of love and safety?

 I can barely remember the first place I called home. It seems like it was so far away. And now it feels as though when I try to go back to that place in my mind, something wants to keep that memory at a distance, some strange forcefeild of time rises up with its dark curtain and pushes me back. Look, but don't touch. There is no malice, its just a place where I no longer belong. It's someone elses home now. The memory is still there, but growing dim, the distance between us diluting the warm sweet taste of home.


Doorbell Button

Once he realized that no one was home

He stepped down from the porch

And scratched his head

Turning to look about the yard

He thought

How long had it been

Twenty

Twenty-five years

Why did he feel like

Every time he reached out

His hand was slapped back

But every step he took lead here

Always here

But he was never quite home

Wasn’t it Frost that said

Home is the place that when you go there

They have to take you in

Then why did the door stay locked

Why did the lights stay off

Even the little light on the doorbell button

Then he remembered that it didn't work

And it never did

He turned to leave, looking at the ground

Fall leaves

Fall birds

A heavy heart

Nothing but the sound of a plane overhead

Only to find himself knocking on the door

Waiting

Tony Whitford

6/24/2012