Museum of Almosts

In the quiet gallery of my mind,
a velvet rope separates
what we were
from what we never became.

Exhibit One:
The Bench Where You Almost Kissed Me—
a cast of shadows,
two figures leaning in,
paused forever in that breath-before
we never crossed.

Exhibit Two:
A Text Never Sent.
Backlit glass holds four unsaid lines—
each word trembling,
still waiting
for courage to hit “send.”

Exhibit Three:
A Rainy Afternoon Framed in Fog.
An umbrella too small for our silence,
your hands brushing mine,
then
pulling away
like pages never turned.

Exhibit Four:
The Room Where We Didn’t Say Goodbye.
An echo chamber of missed timings—
you looked back once,
I looked back too late.

There is a hallway
filled with our nearlys:
the coffee spilled instead of shared,
the song I meant to play you,
the smile I saved
that you never saw.

A guide walks past me—
mute, familiar.
I think it’s you.
I follow,
but every door
leads back to almost.

There’s a plaque at the exit
that reads:
“Some things are not lost—
they were never allowed to begin.”

And outside,
the air feels full of ghosts
who never lived,
yet still
find a way to haunt.

- Khushi Kaul