UNHELD

 

I folded my hands around the memories

like they were still warm, like they could explain themselves.

Once, they fit me perfectly—

every habit, every promise, every quiet yes

sat in my chest and called it home.

I did not question the joy then;

I lived inside it the way you live inside skin.

But seasons change even the truest shelters.

What once fed me began to ask for blood,

and what made me whole learned to take pieces instead.

I stayed longer than wisdom allows,

calling it loyalty, calling it love,

pretending the ache was just growth

and not the sound of myself thinning out.

Letting go was not brave—it was brutal.

It felt like tearing down a house

I built with my bare hands and faith.

I mourned the version of me who believed

that right things stay right forever,

that feeling safe was a permanent state

and not a fragile agreement with time.

Now I walk away without apology, but not without grief.

I carry the sorrow like a scar that still remembers pain.

Some things save you only for a while,

and leaving them is its own kind of death.

Still, I choose the empty space ahead of me—

because even broken, I refuse to shrink

for what no longer knows how to hold me whole.