The Lost and Found of My Heart

There’s a lost and found inside my chest,

a box behind the ribs,

where all the almosts and not-quites go

with half-chewed ticket stubs.

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Old feelings sit like single gloves

that never met their pair,

a scarf of something almost-love

still holding on your hair.

¤

There’s patience with a coffee stain,

a joke we never told,

a promise written in the rain

that never learned to hold.

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One drawer is full of sorry’s

I rehearsed but never said,

they clink like loose, forgotten coins

inside my metal head.

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Another holds your Tuesday texts,

those “made it home” goodnights,

they glow like tiny exit signs

in corridors of fights.

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Some items are unlabelled,

just tossed in when I was late—

a childhood fear, a borrowed shirt,

the sense I might be “too much” weight.

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A keychain from a different life

still warms beneath the pile,

It fits no lock I own right now

But I keep it for a while.

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The metaphor gets messy here—

I know, I’m mixing shelves.

Some days this room’s a storage unit,

Some days it’s just… myself.

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The clerk who runs this lost and found

is tired, but she’s kind.

She pins small notes to wayward things:

“Claim when you change your mind.”

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She’s me on Sunday afternoons,

in socks that don’t quite match,

going through boxes labeled “us”

and “things I couldn’t catch.”

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Here’s courage in a plastic bag,

I swear I meant to use.

Here’s trust with just a button missing,

Too easy to refuse.

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Here’s that version of my voice

That doesn’t crack on “stay,”

I must’ve dropped it years ago

The night I walked away.

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And there—

a tiny crumpled slip,

a number, not a name.

I do not remember who it is,

just that I never came.

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Sometimes I want to burn it all,

Declare a clearance day:

“Free to a world that doesn’t mind

that I don’t know what to say.”

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But then I find a softer thing—

a laugh you left in June,

a look from me that says, “I care”

without needing a room.

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The lost and found of my heart

isn’t just dust and ache;

It’s also hope that got misplaced

but never learned to break.

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I’m learning how to open it

without becoming storm,

to hand old hurts their coats and say,

“You’ve served your time—transform.”

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If you ever feel you’ve left

a piece of you with me,

You probably did; I keep such things

more carefully than keys.

¤

Come check the box, we’ll sort through it—

the scarves, the notes, the fear.

And if we can’t find what you lost,

Maybe you’ve grown out of it here.