The Unsent Letter

A sixth specimen from the letter shop. No buyer, no sender.

You said yes with your coat already on. I learned to read that as weather, and to wait it out.

Your yes was never a promise. It was permission for me to stop asking. So I stopped, and called the waiting love, and got very good at it.

Here is the part I never get to hand you: I wasn't confused. I chose. Every time I took the yes and ignored the closing door, I was the one holding it shut. That sentence was never for you. It is the one I have been avoiding.

I don't want you back. I want the years. The version of me who heard the first soft no as a no, and left, and let it end sad and finite.

You weren't the thief. You were the fog, and I kept insisting I could see.

I'm not sending this. You would read blame and answer with the same warm wall, and I would fold. So I keep it, and give the sentence its owner at last.

It was a no. It was always a no. And I was allowed to hear it without being told.

Specimen six. Unsent, like the rest.