There once was a child with too many things—
a box full of buttons, a bird made of strings,
a hat that belonged to a father now gone,
a watch that still ticked but the hour was wrong.

She carried them all in a bag on her back,
each item a whisper, a worry, a crack.
No room for a coat, no space for a friend—
just memories packed without start, without end.

A pebble from rivers she never walked near,
a note with no sender, a name she held dear.
She lugged it through summers and staggered through snow,
refusing to leave what had once helped her grow.

One day she met someone who carried no sack.
He smiled and said, “You could put some things back.”
She frowned and said, “But these are my keeps.”
He nodded and asked, “And which ones still speak?”

She opened the bag and began to let go—
a feather, a fork, a torn shadow of woe.
Not all, but a few. Just enough to stand tall.
Her back learned to breathe, and she started to fall—

into walking, not dragging. Into days made of now.
The road felt like song. She forgot the old how.
She still kept a key and a small silver bell—
but she learned not all stories are hers to retell.

Let’s try without needless words,
Unnecessary pauses and empty doubts
To finish out fairy tale, titled “Unlove”.
Let’s stop all fights. We have no other outs.

Let’s try without needless tears
To recognize that we're both orphaned.
We’ve been repaid wholly for our Unlove:
Our hearts are faded, our souls're ossified.

Let’s try without needless words
To say the only one and single phrase:
“Forgive me for this poor Unlove!”
It’ll be the rare truth without any haze.

. (or: the god who called me “sir”) .

He entered like a prophecy mispronounced—
storm-soaked, sky-buttoned,
his coat dragging dusk across the floorboards,
eyes lit like stolen copper.

My drink was a cathedral of neglect—
neat bourbon, no ice,
echoing the taste of promises embalmed in dust.
I drank the same way I pray:
sparingly, and to a god I no longer trust.

He didn’t sit; he disrupted.
Barstools shifted like tectonics,
shadows coiled around his boots,
and the jukebox skipped a beat to watch him move.

“You look like someone who’s been patient too long,”
he said, voice lacquered in soft thunder,
vowels curling like smoke from a burnt vow.

I gave him my laugh—
a cracked heirloom I no longer polish.
He wore it like cologne
and leaned in as if to inhale the ruin.

His hands were myths retold badly—
trembling between gentleness and guillotine.
He touched the rim of my glass
like it was my mouth,
and drank it wrong—
reckless, like he’d never been told no
and didn’t believe in scarcity.

The night flexed around us.
My watch stopped ticking.
Time, the faithful beast I’d trained
to lie at my feet,
lifted its head and whimpered.