Hey, I think
that was our turn back there.
This line has languished
in the unseen recesses
of my poetry working folder
for over a decade.
It does not want for company
in that literary hospice.
Yet I cannot but feel
the cold resentment
of a fragment of potential
as it wastes away,
unfulfilled, unloved.
I keep it around
because of a promise
I made through the simple act
of noting the line
in the first place,
writing it down,
giving it its own document,
with a name and a date.
I take it out every few months
to stare at the words,
and they back at me,
neither of us certain
how this will all end.
Only then, it’s back into the folder,
perhaps to couple inadvertently
with another unused phrase
or idea, but probably
doomed to just linger there
in the darkness,
desperate for purpose,
longing for life.