The Undelivered Postcard
A sliver of horizon, stiff in hand,
it bears no city, street, or promised land.
No inked direction on its back is set,
a silent promise, a forgotten threat.
It is a vessel built without a helm,
a ship adrift in a vast, indifferent realm.
Its message, trapped within the pulp and dye,
a whispered secret passing readers by.
It speaks of all the words we leave unsaid,
the phantom letters in the heart and head.
The “I forgive you” or “I love you too,"
they’d never find their proper avenue.
It is the bridge that ends before the shore,
the key that fits no lock upon the door.
It holds a sunset view, a painted sky,
intended for a specific, single eye.
Its life is one of stillness and of wait,
a transient object sealed by silent fate.
It knows the sender’s hand, the stamp’s brief kiss,
then plunges into the communication abyss.
It lies inside a drawer, or on a shelf,
a lonely testament unto itself.
A metaphor for chances cast away,
a sun-bleached memory of yesterday.
The postal system, in its structured might,
delivers day and navigates the night.
But this card breaks the code, the golden rule,
a rebel item, a stateless, wandering fool.
It mocks the logistics, the sorting machine’s whir,
a phantom address with no destination, sure.
It is the story told to no one’s ear,
a bell that rings where no one is near.
Perhaps its power is in the void it keeps,
the silent promise that within it sleeps.
For while addressed, its journey would be done,
beneath the gaze of a specific sun.
Unaddressed, it belongs to all of us,
this little card, this wordless, world-less fuss.
It carries every possible reply,
a universal, silent, hopeful sigh.
So let it rest, the unaddressed postcard,
a little piece of life we’ve held unbarred
from finality, from being truly sent.
A perfect moment, perfectly unspent.
It is the poem I write that you won’t read,
the planting of a universal seed,
awaiting recipient, could have been,
a memory in time that no one had seen.
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