The Weight of Unsent Letters

The shoebox sits under the bed,
dusting over like forgotten dreams.
Inside, a stack of envelopes,
each one a tiny coffin.

Unsent letters. My own personal graveyard.

They’re addressed to you,
each one a different version
of the story we never finished.

The first one, cheerful, hopeful,
scribbled on a napkin in that coffee shop
where we first met. Remember?
The air thick with possibility,
and the bitter scent of burnt sugar.
I wrote about the way your laugh sounded,
like wind chimes in a summer breeze.
I wrote about the electricity
between our fingertips when we reached
for the same sugar packet.
I never sent it.

The second, angry, raw,
written in the dead of night,
a week after you left.
Pages stained with tears,
ink bleeding into the paper.
I accused you of everything,
of being a coward, a liar,
of stealing my sunshine.
I called you names I regret now,
words sharp as broken glass.
I crumpled it up, threw it away,
then unfolded it, smoothed it out,
and put it in the box.

Then there are the sad ones,
languid and heavy with longing.
Written on rainy afternoons,
watching the world blur through the window.
I confessed how much I missed you,
how the silence in my apartment
was deafening without your voice.
I described the ache in my chest,
a constant, dull throb.
I wanted to beg you to come back,
but pride held my tongue.

And the hopeful ones, later,
after the anger had faded,
after I’d started to heal.
Cautious, tentative,
like testing the water with my toe.
I wrote about forgiveness,
about understanding,
about maybe, someday,
being friends.
I imagined a future where we could
laugh about the past,
without the ghosts of what-ifs
haunting our smiles.

But the box remains, unopened,
a silent testament to my cowardice.
It's easier to let the letters lie,
to keep the unspoken words buried,
than to face the potential rejection,
the rekindling of old wounds.

So the box sits, a weight under the bed,
a reminder of all the things I didn’t say,
of all the chances I didn’t take.
And sometimes, late at night,
I can almost hear the rustle of paper,
the whispers of unsent words,
drowning out the silence.
They are my secrets, my burdens,
and for now, they are mine to keep.