My childhood home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There\'s pleasure in it too.
—Abraham Lincoln, “My Childhood Home I See Again”
I hadn’t seen that street in years—
but there it was:
that poem,
like a key under the mat
of a door I thought I’d forgotten.
Suddenly,
the walls knew my name again.
Cracked paint, sure—
but I remembered every crack,
how they spidered in the corners
like stories trying to escape.
And I could hear it—
the block party music
that shook our windows
but never bothered us,
because joy was never something
you asked to turn down.
I felt the cold hill beneath my coat
as if I’d just let go of the sled—
as if gravity still pulled me
toward the version of myself
who laughed without bracing.
And this—
from Lincoln.
Not the monument,
not the martyr,
but the man
who once stood
at the edge of memory,
half-smiling,
half-swallowed by time.
He gave me back
what I didn’t know I’d lost:
the permission to remember
without guilt,
to feel joy
even in the ache.
And now,
when I think of home,
I don’t try to rewrite it.
I just return.
And thank him
for opening the door.