Letters I Never Sent

I wrote you in October,

Then November came around,

I filled another page with things

I never said out loud.

I told you I was angry,

I told you I was fine,

I wrote your name a hundred times

And crossed it out each time.

These are the letters I never sent,

Words I couldn’t make myself regret,

Every little “I miss you,” Every little “Please come home,”

Still sitting in a drawer

Where nobody knows. I wrote about the coffee shop,

The one beside the train,

I passed it just last Sunday

And remembered you again.

Maybe some words are meant for paper,

Maybe some are meant to stay,

Maybe loving someone quietly

Is another kind of way.

These are the letters I never sent,

The pieces of a life we left,

And though I’ll never mail them,

I don’t wish them away.

Some things are still worth

keeping.