The Grammar of Almost

The Grammar of Almost

On the lives we carry without owing them completion.

I speak fluently

in could haves,

would haves,

what ifs.

They arrive like ghosts

who don’t mean harm—

just checking

whether I still remember

the rooms they never lived in.

Could have is a doorway

I stood near,

hand on the frame,

feeling the future breathe

on the other side.

Would have is a sentence

that assumes courage

was always available,

as if fear didn’t also

have a vote.

What if is the quietest.

It doesn’t accuse.

It wonders.

It asks in a child’s voice

and waits without demanding

an answer.

But here’s the truth

the past never learned to say:

I did not fail to choose.

I chose with the information

my body could carry at the time.

Every almost

was shaped by weather,

by history,

by the weight of staying alive.

So when the what ifs return,

I don’t exile them anymore.

I set them down gently

and say:

You were possibilities,

not promises.

You were questions,

not debts.

And I am not behind.

I am here—

the one who lived

through the choosing,

not just the imagining.

—

Flower InBloom