For when one door closes, another must open.

She stands alone in the street

staring at the wooden post, staked into the ground

as its hanging sign sways back and forth in the wind,

flaunting the big bolded words: FOR SALE.

The beautiful, bright green lawn that had just been freshly cut,

must look its best for the buyers her mother hoped would visit.

However, it didn't always look like that.

It was usually torn up with several patches of dirt,

for as kids, it was their own personal soccer stadium.

She walks up the front porch preparing herself

to take one last walk through the place she once called “home”.

She glances around the living room where they spent most of their nights

snuggled up on the couch, watching all of their weekly favorites—

Family Feud, The Wheel of Fortune, or Thursday night football.

She continues on peering her head around the corner into the kitchen,

where she would usually see her mother washing dishes or preparing one of her famous meals.

Standing tall beside her stood the fridge filled entirely on the surface

with pictures, postcards, recipes, tests and anything else that would fit.

In the room across, she looks over at the old, beat up dining room table—

a piece of wood that could speak a thousand words, for it had heard it all.

Everyone gathered around, sitting in their unofficial assigned seats,

at many holidays, birthdays, and every evenings’ supper.

So many stories told, lessons learned, and memories made.

As she heads down the stairs a flood of memories crowd her mind.

She suddenly remembers all of the made up games

they would so often play down there.

Out the window she views her treehouse

so sturdily built onto the grand oak tree.

The one she would sit in for hours on end;

reading books, listening to music, doing homework.

She makes her way back towards the front of the house,

pulls out her little yellow key with sunflower designs,

and closes the big mahogany front door for the last time.