I don't know why I keep telling these stories. Maybe it's habit. Maybe it's a defense mechanism disguised as a memory box. Maybe it's just what happens when your heart gets tired of being quiet.

But lately, it feels like I'm trying to hold on to a kite in too much wind. The string cuts into your fingers, you dig your heels deep into the grass, and you know—you know you should probably just let it go.

But you don't.

Because it's yours. Because letting go feels like forgetting. And forgetting feels like disappearing.

I'm not trying to be profound. I'm just trying to make sense of all the little things that keep buzzing around in the corners of my mind. A jelly jar. The shape of a lover's collarbone. A translucent plastic toy that shined like a jewel in the sunlight. The smell of mac and cheese on a school night.

They don't mean much to the world. But they're the fingerprints I left behind inside the tunnel of time.

Sometimes I worry I'm turning into one of those guys who talks too long at the end of a party—the one people politely smile at while edging toward the door.

But I'm not trying to keep you here.

I'm just hoping maybe that something I say reminds you of something you lost. Something that made you feel whole, even if just for a minute. Even if it came in the shape of your favorite rock, or a special pin from your dad's coat pocket, or a porch light left on years after you moved out.

I keep talking because these things don't want to stay. They fade. They fray. They curl up and drift away unless someone pins them down with language.

So maybe that's what I'm doing: pinning shadows to a wall before the light changes.

This has been a love letter to a forgotten thing.

And maybe, if I say it just right, you'll remember your own.