The anatomy of holding on

Inside, there’s a small museum where I keep the pieces I couldn’t let go of: the first laugh, a heartbeat that wasn’t mine, the warmth that made me think I was whole. Each memory cataloged by touch and scent, stitched together with words I never spoke. I’ve tried to map it all out, to dissect the parts of me that stayed, to understand why memories linger like bones that ache in the cold, old and unhealed. I used to think if I traced each line back, I’d find a path out of this maze of almosts. Some days, it’s a heart still beating in fragments, a ghost of the things I never gave away. Other days, it’s just an empty room, filled with whispers that only I can hear, their voices brittle, fading like dust on old photographs. I wonder how much of myself I’ve left in places where I thought I could stay forever— a hand outstretched in the dark, a promise I thought I could keep. But love is only anatomy until it breathes, and letting go is an art of breaking, learning to live with the echoes of things I never said. If I could open myself up like a book, each page would be filled with what didn’t fit, the names of places where I left pieces, the outlines of people who faded in the light. What remains is the skeleton of almosts, a body built of memories, stitched and scarred. In the end, maybe we’re just a collection of things that almost made us whole— a museum of lost words, unsent letters, and souvenirs from places we never really stayed. Each piece a quiet map of the self we keep hidden, the anatomy of all we once held close, now letting go, one fragment at a time.