Once, I felt the sun's warmth every morning, through the faintest crack. Now I languish under a persistence of dust, the world's unkempt attic, but I hold the last postcard—Paris, 58 years old, stained with clandestine whispers of an estranged traveler.
Locked inside the recesses of this simple wooden table is not knowledge, but secrets of the fingers that carved their names into my surface in desperation or reckless boredom. Their dreams sketch paths across ruined ink, hidden stories waiting for a curious hand to decipher.
I am a once-revered compass, now a relic of sentimental folly. Stored away since my owner learned North is sometimes less important than the soul’s internal orientation. One glance at my needle, once trusted, might guide them to a self-rediscovery.
Pottery shards, chipped and cruel, narrate the collisions of teenage arguments now fossilized in desperate mascara run-offs. The air is thick with unresolved dialogues—witnesses to laughter and solitude in equal measure.
Tucked beneath the friction-worn journal, I am but a paperclip; nevertheless, I bind more than merely sheets of paper. A clasp on brittle, chaotic lives, holding together unsent letters and crumpled hopes evoking muted longing.