Unsent

I found it in the book,

a pressed leaf, dry and thin.

The page I’d folded shut

before the end could begin.

Blue ink, the kind they gave you

at the hardware store.

Words I couldn't speak then,

now I can’t speak anymore.

I traced the smudge, my thumbprint

a ghost on the line.

Everything I thought I’d leave you,

everything that was mine.

The paper remembers the pressure,

the hurried scratch of the pen.

It waited in the pages,

unopened, time again.

It’s just paper, water, and ink.

A failed attempt to mend.