A Museum of Almosts

From Sara Henry💌

on nostalgia

I have a habit of making memories into art

From the start I’ve always been sentimental

Who am I without my gentle heart?

There is no joy without sadness

And that’s exactly what reminiscence brings

How can I remember things like the sound of your footsteps and know they’re yours? Doors and drawers of my childhood bedroom

I will never be this version of myself again so let me slow down and stay with her now

Before I myself allow this summer night to give me the same painful feeling of watching my parents grow old

I didn’t notice until now my neighbor’s house on that street corner finally sold

I am simply a stranger to the photographs I look at of when I was twelve standing on the route where I walked to school

Would she be proud of me, even though I’m still figuring my life out? Or that I would love to tell her that I’ve experienced what she only dreamed about? The taste of it is sweet like the candy I used to eat

I finally realize that the longer I sit with my nostalgia it’s really just grief

maybe this time

Maybe this time it will be for sure

But I’ve never felt certainty with anyone before

Because to my core I feel like maybe I’m unloveable but is it because I haven’t found you yet?

Because clarity is rare when you care so much and are conditioned to hope for the worst

What if it doesn’t work out again this time

But what if it does and I have someone that’s mine

Maybe it will feel so right that I’ll have to convince myself of your flaws that don’t appeal My thoughts cause me to spiral and reel about everything that went wrong in the past Maybe it feels like a hurricane and a safety net all at once

Yet I expect love to leave even after it arrives softly and with intention and care And I stare at the ceiling listing reasons why it won’t choose to stay there Why am I so afraid of forever?

Peace feels suspicious but maybe breaking it off would be better

There’s nowhere for it to go because I didn’t let my hope stall

Maybe just maybe

The worst case scenario isn’t what’s true at all

colors

They never even scratched the surface

I’m forever nervous to show my colors

The pink of the way I blush the pale yellow

Of my warmth given to former lovers

It’s unseen, the red that my anger hides

Under or the grey that shades my

self-doubt

I’ve been told it tints the fantasy of what you knew

How do you know what’s tried and true?

Was it when the mirror shattered and you refused to look at what wasn’t seen by you? My pain my flaws my past

The darkness I hide is why you left and it didn’t last

museum

I still fight the urge to call you at 3 am leaving the bar

I stare at your number on the screen while in the back seat of the car

I don’t miss you I want you to miss me so much it hurts although I’m always the one loudly yearning

It feels like a burning for you like nothing I’ve ever known before you noticed me existing

Attachment is never fleeting it’s stuck to me like sticky sweet honey I can’t get it off my hands

You are a collection of everyone I’ve ever met

A museum of beliefs about the world and the way your eyes crease a little bit when you smile and your tattoos

The galleries are something I thought would be there forever and never something I could lose

You said everything except I love you but I knew

I guess that’s why you’ll never know how my heart breaks everytime someone says your name

So this is why it ended up in flames turned to just embers now

At least a fire means something is still persisting and thriving even when we were fading away

practice

Was it all just practice?

Orbiting around your axis hoping to be chosen

Frozen in time from the moment I started talking to you

You started it

The kissing in public, the sleepovers, the “thank you for dinner”

“If only I was thinner and funnier and more interesting” I’d say then maybe he’d commit The late night conversations, the photos we took the night we met The instant connections are always the biggest emotional threat

You should ask about intentions, my therapist said

It’s not the first time she was right with her questions and interventions Falling for potential without consistency again

You pursued me why else would I think otherwise?

Maybe it was the lie that I was the prize that you chased

We followed the script all the way from meeting through friends to our fifth date But you don’t want a relationship

It was all just practice and just another short-term fling

I am never the final match but just the rehearsal for the real thing

avoidant

I’ve grown accustomed to being alone

Even grown to be comfortable with it

No messages on my phone sent or received today

I must be prone to keeping people at a distance in some strange way

Unconsciously I project my rigidity and protect myself from building a connection worthwhile

Walk a mile in my shoes, but be prepared because I’ll just end up running away for awhile

My past tells me what is tried and true

But does it make sense to you?

Pull away when someone gets too close

Doing the most only for me to leave first

This relationship routine feels rehearsed where i’m about to play my ace I thought I could say that I could stay this time

I just need space is my classic line it’s all by design

But space is not for me to be alone with my thoughts but to distract myself with drinks that are free and boys from the bar that simply aren’t mine

I can’t be reigned in I break you before you have the chance to

It’s fine

I’m closed off and damaged

Although at one time I was fragile and softness was freely given and I’ve grown resistant to security

The risk is to much for my insecurity with vulnerability

halfway alone

When you see me will you think I’ve changed?

Yes it’s strange, the curl pattern of my hair that I cut months ago, and my tan skin that only developed yesterday yet the timeframe feels the same

If it’s four months or two days that minute in May feels like a dream that’s impossible for me to reach

Absence makes the heart grow fonder yet I wonder and ponder if it just makes me restless

Distance, fighting, the grief of missed timing

Restless and resentful that you’re not here to dry my tears and ease my fears I bet you regret the day we met

Because the video calls are only the highlights for our downfalls and the disconnection that that stretches as far as the seas that separate us

I yearn to share space and not just physical but your solar system tattoo

We sleep in solitude in our respective cities but that tattoo is how far I feel away from you with another galaxy to add between

Yet the loneliness I sit with at the end of the day isn’t fleeting it’s teasing me of the what could be

You try to fix it with words but what good is it when there’s no plan? But we can, he says

Distance, fighting, the grief of missed timing

I wait for replies that are too short, too delayed and too missed,

Like half of something of sorts. You hope you pretend you tell me what I want to hear Yet our future is nothing but unclear

Distance, fighting, the grief of missed timing

crush

Eye contact lasting just a second longer to give a message that only we can convey, I realize that our story begins here I say to myself.

We felt it in an instant in the heat of persistence.

The first conversation still lingers

Travel, your career in engineering, your fingers on my earring.

Yes, your presence is endearing and sparks my curiosity a little bit further with every word you speak

They say a crush is just a lack of information

but how did we get ourselves in this sticky situation?

Stealing kisses in bars

Attraction that runs both ways

I look up to meet your gaze.

The teasing, the laughter, the hope that there will be an after because I don’t want this night to end without seeing you again.

You say you look for good banter

But I obsessively wonder if you like me back

Just to distract me from the fact that we’ll have to say goodbye at some point in the night

He looks like he’s been places and how could he quite possibly find me interesting because he’s seen half the world already

I think it’s chemistry because compatibility doesn’t stop time when you talk it’s unsteady.

Energy doesn’t lie it’s disguised by flirting and connection that’s intense and fiery

Now I write in my diary about our encounter like a sixteen year old girl anxiously waiting to see you again in math class

I touch grass in hopes that it shifts my thoughts to something else for a minute But its fleeting as I look at us in the photo strip of the night we met When I see you again will you forget those moments we shared? I bet

questions

All the questions I never got to ask

Like what’s the thing you regret most in your past?

I couldn’t believe how quickly it was over

Within the week you were on your layover

I never got to know what your favorite color is or what compliment you wish you got more often

I wish I could see you soften with my curiosity

I got the feeling it was new

Maybe he does like blue I think to myself

But I can’t help but wonder because I won’t see your face light up as I ask you in person Did you replay all the moments we shared like I did?

Were you ever afraid of monsters as a little kid?

Have you ever wanted to go to Japan or began a book you didn’t finish?

I guess time was the thing that divided us but it’s also what will tell if I will ever get the answers I want

Maybe one day, the vision I have of us at the restaurant having dinner will finally come true

We’ll be in the same space

And I will narrow my list of questions to only a few

About the Author:

Sara is a writer and therapist based in Southern California whose work explores the emotional landscapes of relationships, grief, love, and the quiet ways we make meaning of our lives. Through poetry and reflective essays, she writes about memory, healing, and the feelings that linger long after moments have passed. Drawing from both her lived experience and her work as a therapist, Sara believes that every story deserves to be witnessed with compassion, understood with curiosity, and shared with honesty.

Substack ID: Sara Henry

Have something to share? Submit your own reflections or stories to be featured in The Open Letters. Send your work to hasifnewsletter@gmail.com. For more details, check out this post: Submit your Essays and get Featured.

Hasif,
Editor-in-Chief, The Open Letters