Revisiting

I wrote a line in a previous post that I'd like to revisit. It was kinda thrown in there and I think it deserves to be more of a central character. So here I go again.

It's listening that I regret the most. Especially when I remember what I haven't heard. The sun there in the sky, caught behind the clouds. Rain on the roof when the lightning screams.

I thought I knew how hard it was. And how easy it could be. I could strangle in the long strands of pain if I only put my neck through. Let them do the work for me. Or I could shred them into confetti and throw them to wind. A celebration of forgetting.

But it's not what happened. It's what never did. It's not what they said that I heard. It's everything they didn't.

The ghosts will haunt as they choose. My only choice is if I listen. Climb those soft stairs. As they lurch me toward that sullen space. Every life has this place. An attic or a cellar where everything lost is neatly stored in boxes carefully labeled.

Taped seams try their best to keep the contents contained. While large handwriting on the outside tries to explain that what's in there you're better off not revisiting.

The ghosts will tell you to open them. To look inside. But you don't need to see what's in there to remember how much you wish it didn't have to be.

All the things that never happened. And I listened for, but didn't hear. And everything else I can't explain how I miss when I never really knew it.

But I do. It's all inside those boxes. And it's hard enough just seeing the containers. So don't ask me to open to them.

It's the listening I regret the most. Because there's so much I needed to hear. That I know I never will.