What Keeps Us

Some things you keep
without knowing why—
a button,
a postcard,
a half-spoken goodbye.

You keep them because
they hummed when you touched them.
Because they ached like a bruise
but softer.

Because memory is a witch
who works in vinegar and lace,
and you are her apprentice,
preserving the days
you can’t bear to taste yet.

You keep the story
your grandmother never finished.
You keep the spoon that stirred the storm.
You keep the one letter
you never sent—
the one that starts,
“I remember the peaches,
and your laugh,
and the jar that didn’t seal.”

This isn’t hoarding.
It’s spellwork.

It’s what we do
when the world is too fast,
too loud,
too cruel.

We boil the sweet into syrup.
We write the ache in salt.
We close the lid and label it:

Worth keeping.
Worth opening someday.
Worth remembering I was here.