Sentient Doors

Every feeling has a threshold,
a plank‑scented passage,
hinges that remember every push and pull.

Some emotions enter like a front door flung wide in summer,
sun pouring in as if it had been waiting outside
with a fistful of warmth.

Others creep through the mind
the way cold slips under a weather‑stripped frame,
quiet as a shiver learning your name.

Yes…

There are doors that lock,
deadbolts clacking like frightened teeth;
others swing both ways,
saloon‑style, letting grief barrel in
then tumble back out before we catch our breath.
Even the heart has its dog door,
just a flap of soft, worn leather
where stray memories nose their way through
as if hunger alone is permission.

Some doors…

Are best left open a crack at night,
so the hall’s thin ribbon of light
can seep through like a timid promise,
a night‑light glow to keep the darker thoughts
from tripping over themselves.

Yet fear…

Teaches us to barricade,
to seal the mind like a panic room
where nothing enters
but the echo of our own pulse.

And then…

There is the door that never opens again,
paint blistered, knob frozen like a clenched fist,
its frame swallowing the silence around it.
A threshold gone to sleep.
A portal turned mausoleum.
You press your ear to it and hear
only the ghost‑breath of what once dared to cross,
and the long, low ache of a hinge that forgot it could move.

But locking the heart…

Is a dangerous architecture,
a room starving for oxygen,
a house forgetting the sound of footsteps,
the scent of someone arriving.
And here is the quiet twist of truth:
our inner doors were never built
to be frivolously kept closed;
they stiffen when ignored,
creak in protest,
and sometimes never open again.

Remember…

The heart and mind are wired intuitively.

Our real risk is keeping them locked.