The Evicted Family
The notice came on yellow paper, taped beside the door,
Thirty days to find another life, another floor.
The kids don’t understand the boxes, think it’s some kind of game,
But mama’s packing photographs and swallowing the shame.
What fits inside a minivan? Not the marks on the kitchen wall
Where you measured how the children grew. Not the echo in the hall.
Not the neighbor who brought casseroles, not the tree the dog loved best,
Just the bare essentials crammed in bags against a hollow chest.
Morning comes with a friend’s spare key, a couch, a place to land,
A borrowed roof until the ground stops shifting under like quicksand.
In the home where dreams once grew, they find the strength to start anew,
Because roots aren’t in the walls–they’re in the people pulling through.