The Road of Almost

There's a road that only appears when you're not looking for it. You know it,

the one between the moment you almost said something and the moment you didn't.

It hums quietly in the background of every clock. It smells like rain that never

fell. Sounds like a door that was never fully closed. We all walk

it barefoot, uninvited, dragging the ghosts of decisions that almost became us.

The air there is thick with ifs. If I'd stayed, if I'd left

sooner, if I'd known that silence was just a different kind of

goodbye. Oh! Somewhere along that road, regret isn't pain,