Drawing Room of Memory

In the drawing room of memory,

I opened a stack of old letters last night.

Then I placed love back into the drawer.

and folded the sorrow slowly, gently

before entrusting it again

to that twenty-year-old wooden rack.

From those sheets of paper rose

the scent of forgotten seasons,

and it unsettled the rhythm

of my breathing.

Every word my eyes touched

was still warm

as though the past itself

had been waiting beneath my fingertips.

For a few fleeting minutes,

my twenty years conversed

with the lines on my palm,

and yet…

the movement in those lines

had not ceased.

And in that very moment

it felt as though time

had placed an unspoken question

upon my open hand

Do memories truly pass,

or is it merely we

who keep shifting their angles

to make peace with ourselves?

The clock upon the wall

paused for the length of a heartbeat

to tell me this:

Some letters are not meant to be read

they simply remain where they are,

so that we

do not fall apart.