Yesteryear

 I fell in love with its yesteryear charm.                                                                 

You could tell it evoked a warmth,

a certain security of family that once lived 

behind the black shutters.

And I hoped I could bring back the same vitality of life

that echoed to me in the sunlit rooms.

   So I purchased that emotion, happy to feel that I belonged.

I filled it with furnishings that I acquired throughout the years

and the house came back to life. 

You would have thought the furnishings were purchased with the home.

The marriage of those furnishings within their respective rooms,

dressed to mirror each other.

   And I was proud.

I wanted to share my charming home with those I loved.

Thus I invited family to share in my blessings and bring love

back again to those once empty rooms.

  We enjoyed our first Christmas with loved ones , gathering as many family that we could. Decorations carefully adorning the spirit of the season upon the mantels of its walls.

Oh how glorious it was to hear those rooms alive with the chatter of friends .

   And with spring and summer , I lovingly planted garden beds

adding to the exterior of  the homes cottage charm, inviting you in.  

   Then Halloween arrived, and ghoulish as they were,

they came and brought laughter for the old home's spirits that remained.

Memories I shall never forget.

But there was no comfort outside these walls.

No feeling of security or charm could I find.

Only an emptiness. A nothing, it saddened me.

   Neighborhoods and their homeowners riddling me with their

unfriendliness and contempt , when only love and kindness should be sown.

Creating an atmosphere of hostility ... imprisoning me.

   This beautiful charming home no longer resonating the same pleasures I first found behind the old black shuttered windows,

   the eyes to the outside world.

Your home should be a reflection of your soul.

Inviting and welcoming, for that I was certain.

But beyond those walls, forces you cannot percieve or control.

  Abandoning all hope , I felt the loneliness for what I never saw.

For the first time, I too echoed the emptiness of those old charming rooms, before they were disguised in their refinements and laughter.

Robbing me , stripping me of any vitality I first brought with me.

   And it left me wondering of the ghosts that remained.