The Draft Folder of My Life

My inbox has a small, dim country

called Drafts—

unmailed letters, half-born thoughts,

whole lives I almost chose

and didn’t.

I visit it the way some people

drive past old houses,

slowing down near the turn

They didn’t take.

Here’s the message that began with

I miss you

and never got to the part

where I admit

I still set a place for you

in my head.

Here’s the apology

I edited until it sounded

like a press release—

all polish, no pulse,

So I closed the laptop

before it could sign my name.

Here’s the resignation email

to a life that shrinks me;

I wrote the subject line

like a fire alarm,

then saved it

like a postcard from a city

I’ll visit

“when things calm down.”

My draft folder is not an accident.

It’s a museum of almost-bridges,

kept just in case I ever learn

to cross.

Every unwritten paragraph

It is a room in a house

I refuse to move into.

I walk the hallway daily,

fingers on the walls of maybe.

I have become fluent

in unsent syntax—

the language of

next week,

the dialect of

No worries, it is fine

when it wasn’t.

Some drafts are kinder versions

of things I said out loud

too sharp,

too soon.

They sit there,

parallel timelines

where I chose softness

instead of winning.

Some are love letters

to futures

I didn’t feel allowed to want—

cities with more sky,

mornings with less noise,

a body that feels

like a front door

instead of a locked file.

If you could read them,

You’d see I’m braver on the screen

than in the room.

My cursor knows a courage

My tongue keeps confusing

with catastrophe.

But here’s what I’m learning

among these digital ghosts:

Drafts are not failures.

They’re rehearsals,

proof that somewhere inside me

is a person who reaches

before they retreat.

A person who writes,

even if they don’t always send.

So I start small.

I pick one message

from the pile—

the one that says,

I’m not actually okay,

Do you have a minute?

My heartbeat becomes

a malfunctioning notification.

My breathing turns

into a loading bar

stuck at 99%.

Still,

I add your name to the line

that says “To”,

and click the button

That feels like stepping

off a ledge.

Sent.

Nothing explodes.

The world doesn’t vote me off

its island.

Outside, a car passes,

unimpressed.

Inside, a tiny country

loses one ghost.

The draft folder of my life

is still full.

There will always be words

that need more night

to ripen.

But more and more often,

I am letting some of them leave,

wobbly and imperfect,

like paper airplanes aimed

at your open-window heart.

Whatever doesn’t make it,

whatever crashes to the floor,

still proves something

Important:

I did not spend another day

pretending my silence

was all I had to say.