Previous note:This is a repost, now available for free to everyone for a limited time
How I Found This Poem Hidden Somewhere Along the Way?
I came across this poem almost by accident.
I wasn’t looking for it.
I didn’t even know it existed.
There is always a poem hidden somewhere.
That is the art of being a poet: discovering the poems waiting to be revealed.
Every day during my walk, I pass by an abandoned house. I’ve always loved abandoned houses. I want to walk inside them like a detective searching for traces of the past.
The doos of this house remain shut, probably impossible to open by now. But that was the invitation the house gave me: discover me, reveal me.
Every day I walk past it and close my eyes.
I imagine the inside, the people who once lived there, how they spent their days, and I wonder why the house was abandoned in the first place.
Last week, the poem finally revealed itself to me.
I first wrote it in the notes app on my phone, then copied it into my paper notebook.
I’m sharing it with you exactly as it arrived: unedited.
A poem is a space of intimacy and encounter, a sacred place.
Read this poem:
Behind Closed Doors
Behind every closed door
there is always something hiding,
an open wound, a sacred secret,
a shattered love
by the ghost of silence,
empty picture frames and a fallen glove,
handprints on the blackened wall,
inkless pens, empty ashtrays,
broken beds, a baby diaper,
a doll with open eyes
waiting for a baby to play with her,
and footprints, countless footprints
imprinted upon the dust of time.
© Rolando Andrade, 2026
Final thought: If these words stayed with you for a moment,
this space might be for you too.
I write here every week —
sometimes in the open,
sometimes a little closer,
for those who choose to stay.
I found an old rusty doorknob in the yard behind my house
and wondered about the story it could tell
about the people who once lived and worked here.
an old house that has been built and rebuilt many times over the years.
to think of the relatives who might have touched that old rusty doorknob
and how many times it was turned before it was discarded -
but now remembered.
Did you ever pass an old, abandoned house and wonder about it to the extent that you can almost feel its restless ghosts coming alive again through the dusts of time. This poem is eerily memorable!