The Name I Never Heard

Flipping pages, an old album splits

with the brittle sound of past breaths,

finding a bracelet faded, ink half-washed,

a name erased before it could breathe.

The tag’s jagged edge, a paper wound

pinned to a blanket I never held.

Letters blurred, a ghost of identity

that might have been but was not.

I trace the scratches with hesitant fingers,

wonder what weight that name carried,

what skin would have known it first,

what voice might have called it.

An unfinished story hanging between us,

a name like a shadow

that falls sideways into the life I live.