The Porch With Two Doors

It could be a porch with two doors side by side,
A key in my pocket, warm from my hand.
The house exhales softly, as if satisfied.

I have walked these hills where the fog will hide,
Watched it trace glass like a memory’s vein.
It could be a porch with two doors side by side.

The upstairs light hums while streetcars glide,
And jasmine drifts faintly through the chain.
The house exhales softly, as if satisfied.

I need no Painted Lady for my pride,
No skyline crown or marble domain.
It could be a porch with two doors side by side.

Here, even silence remembers my stride,
Here, I return to myself again.
The house exhales softly, as if satisfied.

Whether Hilltop High or Mission’s divide,
The key turns easily, and nothing explains.
It could be a porch with two doors side by side.
The house exhales softly, as if satisfied.

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Author’s Note

On “The Porch With Two Doors”

This poem is not about a house. It is about return.

The architecture is incidental. A Victorian, an Edwardian, a walk-up above the fog. Each one bears witness to what it means to belong to oneself again.

In the last few years, home was conditional. It depended on circumstance, on someone else’s mood, on survival by compromise. Yet the truth of home has never been structural. It is the moment you carry a key not because it grants entry, but because it affirms presence.

The two doors stand for dual lives brought back together—the life the world could see, and the one I protected in silence. Standing before them, I am both tenant and titleholder of my own narrative. The city can keep its grandeur. The Painted Ladies remain beautiful, but I no longer require their address.

The house exhales softly because it recognizes its occupant.

So do I.