It first started out
As a little white room,
That soon turned an ash-gray,
Filled with junk, filled with gloom;
The lights barely hanging,
The windows all dusty,
A web here and there,
And the stench damp and musty.
She took her first breath here,
But how can she know,
When her family's forgotten
Where they let the girl grow?
A toy box, a wardrobe,
Soon everything went,
And what once was a bedroom
Was now a basement.
Baby turned into toddler,
And then toddler to child,
And the stash in the basement
Grew ever so wild;
The papers, in ples,
Stored layers of mold,
And quickly, but slowly,
The child grew old.
One day in December,
When her husband had passed,
She found a worn door
That led her to a mass
After mass after mass,
Broken doll after doll,
Baby clothes her mom chose
To treasure, just like all
The first drawings and stories
And notes of the kid -
The kid that grew up
And found what the room did;
Stored her memories, her childhood,
Her first precious years,
To return to her, now,
The old lady whose tears
Would fall freely on pictures
Of the little girl, who,
After seventy years,
Finally came back to
Her first steps, her first dance,
Her first show, her first bruise,
Andd she knew now that she
Could go back and could choose
Which memory she'd relive,
Which new light the room'd give,
And she smiled and stepped back
In the little girl's shoes.