Liam Barr

Nobody can tell you the thing you want is off the table.
Not with any authority. They can tell you it's unlikely and they'd probably be right.

Unlikely is not the same as closed.

We treat the two as the same word.
We hear low odds and file the whole thing away as settled, then go looking for something more sensible to want.

But the day you stopped believing it was possible, nothing actually changed outside you.
The door didn't lock. You stopped trying the handle.

That's the interesting part of being alive.
Not knowing how it turns out. Waking up somewhere ordinary with the whole thing still open.

Nobody closed the door.
Go and try the handle.

Give something away and for a second it's genuinely gone.
No name on it. No trace of you.

Then you notice what you did.

And the noticing pulls it back.
The good feeling turns around and settles on you instead of them.

Which is why you can still list them.
The time you covered for someone.
The message you sent when you were flat out yourself.
Nobody asked you to keep those.
You did.

A gift you can still recite was never handed over. It was lent.

None of it was fake.
It just stopped being theirs the second you wanted it back.

Most of what you're carrying today doesn't have a face.

The timing. The weather. The way the week landed.

It never feels like blame.
It feels like an honest read of how things went.

But you can't argue with the weather.
So the feeling sits there with nowhere to go.

Nothing out there is going to hand the day back.

It goes ahead regardless.
The only choice is how much of it you spend on the part that's already finished.

What's left when you stop looks small.
It's the only piece that was ever yours.