بول

THE HOUSE HAD MANY DOORS

I grew up in a house
where love did not always
sit at one table.

There were different doors,
different rooms,
different versions
of belonging.

As a child,
I did not know
that a family could carry
so many invisible maps.

I only knew
that some people
seemed to know
where they belonged,
while I was still
learning the shape
of my own name.

There were good days.
There were plenty.
Laughter had its way
of finding us.

Someone would call
from another room,
food would appear,
children would become noisy,
and for a little while
the house forgot
all its complications.

Then came the whispers.
Rumors have a peculiar talent.
They never knock.
They enter through windows,
under doors,
through people
who swear they are only
telling you what they heard.

And misunderstanding
can turn a familiar face
into a stranger
before breakfast.

There were days
I felt singled out.
Not always openly.

Sometimes it was only
a look held too long,
a silence that answered
a question nobody had asked,
a feeling that said,
You are not quite
where you thought you were.

Then came the day
my father disowned me.
I remember the wound.
But I remember
my mother’s face too.

That is the strange thing
about family pain—
you can be hurt
by what happened to you
and still ache more
watching someone you love
hurt because of it.

My mother carried
her own disappointments
and still found strength
to stand.

Perhaps that is where
I first saw resilience.
Not in someone
who had never been broken,

but in someone
who had every reason
to become bitter
and refused the promotion.

My family taught me
that love is not always tidy.
It can share a wall
with disappointment.
It can survive
awkward silences.

It can sit beside pain
without asking pain
to leave first.

I no longer need
my childhood
to have been perfect
to be grateful for it.

The house gave me
some bruises.
It also gave me
a spine.

It taught me
that being misunderstood
is not the same
as being wrong.

And that sometimes
the strongest person
in the room
is the one
who has learned
how to leave the room
without losing herself.

My family did not teach me
how to please everyone.
It taught me
how to stand.

How to hear an opinion
without turning it
into an identity.

How to walk through
being misunderstood
without becoming
a stranger to myself.

I carry all of it now
the laughter,
the rumors,
the difficult days,
my mother’s tears,
my father’s absence
and the strength
that grew quietly
between them.

I did not choose
everything that shaped me.
But I have chosen
what I will become
because of it.