The Man with the Doors

He came at dusk with silent tread,
His steps like whispers of the dead.
No face beneath his hood was seen,
Just shadows stitched in ash and green.

He bore no name, no tale, no past,
Just doors behind him, closing fast.
They sprouted in the air he crossed,
Some made of fire, some rimmed in frost.

His hands were locks, his fingers keys,
His voice a rustling autumn breeze.
He hummed a tune the old forgot,
A song of time, a truth long caught.

Upon his back a heavy chest,
With carvings old and latches blessed.
The runes upon it pulsed and glowed,
Like memories no mind had owed.

He wandered through the sleeping town,
While lanterns flickered, burning down.
Each street he passed, a door appeared—
Some glowed with hope, some wept with fear.

Children peeked from curtained eyes,
And whispered myths in lullaby.
"He's the one who walks with fate,
Opens doors and seals your state."

They said he knew the way to dreams,
Through twisted halls and haunted seams.
A path of riddles, dark and steep,
Where even shadows dare not sleep.

Some doors would hum and draw you near,
Some fed on joy, some swallowed fear.
And those who dared to cross the line
Would vanish past the edge of time.

A woman once with silver hair
Stepped forth with eyes that didn’t care.
She’d seen too much, had lost her name,
And whispered to the man, “I came.”

He pointed toward a crooked gate,
Whose hinges groaned beneath their weight.
It bore no keyhole, lock, or sign—
Yet pulsed like some forgotten spine.

She touched the frame and passed within,
The air grew cold, the world grew thin.
She vanished like a prayer unsaid,
And left behind her shadow’s thread.

The townsfolk waited every night,
To watch his silhouette in light.
Some offered coins, or songs, or cries,
Some begged for truth, or healing lies.

He spoke to none, but doors replied—
With creaks and winds that prophesied.
Each soul that came, he did not sway,
Just gave the door and stepped away.

One night a man with sins too deep
Came forth from where regrets still weep.
His back was bent, his hands were stained,
His voice was guilt, his heartbeat chained.

He begged, “Please let me choose once more,
I’ve shut too many sacred doors.”
The Locksmith nodded, slow and grim,
Then gave a door that sang to him.

Its frame was made of shattered vows,
Its knob a mirror for broken brows.
He turned it once, and once again,
Then disappeared from world and men.

And so the man with doors moved on,
As stars blinked out and moons were gone.
He never aged, he never changed,
But left the world a little strange.

In alleys now where silence grows,
The air still hums, the cold wind blows.
And once a year, when time is weak,
He walks again where dreamers seek.

But knock with care, and speak with truth,
For he despises shallow proof.
No bargain thrives on empty breath—
He deals in loss, in fate, in death.

His doors are trials, his locks are tests,
He keeps what aches in broken chests.
No maps to find him, no bright flame—
Just whisper softly your true name.

If he hears, you’ll find your gate,
But not your self, nor past, nor fate.
You’ll enter worlds that never end,
Where time itself forgets to bend.

They say he waits beyond all things,
In silent halls where sorrow sings.
A keeper of the in-between,
The guardian of what might have been.

So should you knock, knock once—not twice,
For second knocks demand a price.
And once you walk beyond his floor—
You are the door, and nothing more.....

An eerie, mist-covered alley at twilight. A mysterious cloaked man stands in the center, his face hidden in shadow. Instead of hands, he has ancient keys and rusted locks. His back carries a large, weathered chest covered in glowing runes. Around him, ghostly, glowing doors float in the air—some open, some sealed. The sky above swirls with faded stars and whispers of time. The atmosphere is gothic, dreamlike, and symbolic—like a dark fairytale or a fantasy legend.