Unposted Weight

The box slid out, cardboard grit

against the floor. And there it sat,

under tax forms, a folded sheet.

My own hand, looping, adolescent,

pressed hard against the cheap white paper.

No stamp. No address. Just the weight

of what I wanted to say, then didn't.

The flap still tucked, untouched, a seam

of silence holding fast.

It smells like dust, and something else,

a ghost of breath, caught long ago.

I smooth the crease, don't break the seal.

It fits back in, the past still real.