What Gets Left Behind

The shelf came apart

the way things do

when you're not paying attention—

carefully, actually,

each nail pulled out

with the hammer claw,

the wood barely resisting.

Five years of things

I'd arranged on it.

Books I don't read anymore.

A lamp with a cord

that frayed at both ends.

The weight of all of it

pressing down

on the unfinished surface,

and I never once

thought it might fail.

Behind the shelf,

pressed against drywall,

a receipt from a coffee shop.

A bookmark with a photo

I don't remember taking.

Things that had slipped back

and stayed,

hidden, forgotten,

accumulating dust.

I pulled the shelf away.

The nails left holes

like tiny wounds.

The wood was thinner

than I remembered,

cheap,

not built to last.

I'd built it to hold.

But what held was only

what I was willing

to pay attention to.

Everything else

had already fallen.