Rachel Brownlow - "To My Grandparent's Red Front Door"

​
You were always my favourite place;
that moment of anticipation, rapping on your varnished skin
pressing my ear to you and listening for the heartbeat
of footsteps inside.
I was once the height of your mouth,
the gold letterbox with bristle teeth
that swallowed little fingers.
You swung wide
ushering us to their embrace,
into arms we had not been held in for too long.
You stayed, as we rushed through life
growing older and taller and further away.
You watched their paper skin crumble
and their hands gnarl into gentle tree roots
until the day they got into that car and drove away for good
and you wept painted flakes.
The last time I saw you
I was afraid to pass through your arms
and it was just as I feared;
your organs stripped bare
and the ghost of children’s laughter across the wooden floors.
Without them you are a skeleton,
not a home.

​Rachel Brownlow is a 21 year old writer who resides in Galway, Ireland. She enjoys testing her breath on the air of foreign countries and reading everything her hands come into contact with while drinking copious amounts of tea. Her poetry can be found in Words Dance Magazine,Persephone’s Daughters, Dead flowers poetry rag, the Crannóg magazine and at rachbrow1994.wordpress.com and aninsomniacsink.tumblr.com