Old Memories

Version 1

I walk a path I’ve known before,

Walls stained in time’s dim glow.

Black and white beneath my feet,

A checkered past I do not own.

The doors stand still, yet whisper soft,

Memories framed in silent gilt.

One hums with numbers, endless, cold,

Another weeps with hearts long wilted.

At the end, a door awaits—

Not strange, but far too known.

A shadow pools beneath its frame,

Darkness calling home.

Then—bang, bang, bang.

The echoes shake the hollow air.

A voice I know but cannot name

Crawls through the cracks, a desperate prayer.

“Open the door. Just open the door.”

“Why won’t you open? Don’t you trust me?”

“Just open it. Please—open it.”

Fingers twitch, but still, I stay,

Rooted, breathless, bound.

Something waits beyond that door—

But I dare not turn the knob.

The voice grows louder, pleading now,

But I am stone, I am still.

For what if I unearth the past,

And it swallows me whole?

Version 2

I walk a path I’ve known before,

Walls stained in time’s pale glow,

Checkered floors stretch endlessly,

Under lights that hum and flicker low.

Each door is carved with memory’s hand,

Numbers spill like scattered code,

Hearts dangle, trembling, whispering,

Names I once held close.

But at the end, the air grows thick,

A door stands shrouded, still.

A shadow hums behind the wood,

A voice that bends my will.

“Open the door. Just open the door.”

A knock—a thud—a pounding beat,

“You know me, don’t you trust me?”

The voice is cracked, incomplete.

The handle waits beneath my hand,

The dark curls closer still.

Yet something holds me, roots me fast,

A warning in the chill.

“Why won’t you open? Just open it!”

It pleads, it screams, it calls—

But silence grips my breath like chains,

And I do not move at all.

The pounding slows, the echoes fade,

The darkness shifts away.

The door remains, forever closed,

But I still hear it say—

“Just open it.”