Unsent
Unsent is a shelf for lines that never grew into full notes — each with a date, a sentence or two, and an honest reason they stayed short.
This is not a backlog I feel guilty about. Some observations are complete at the size they arrive. Keeping them here prevents me from forcing length where patience would be better.
If you write, you probably have a drawer like this. Mine is public because hiding it would pretend a cleaner process than the one I actually have.
Items appear in chronological scatter rather than narrative order because that is how drawers work — you find a ticket, then a bird note, then something from November you forgot you wrote. The tabs carry dates so you can orient without me pretending a arc.
The lift mirror has a scratch at chin height that makes every reflection look slightly divided, as if you are two people negotiating who will step out first.
Stayed short because the image was complete in one line and stretching it would have turned observation into metaphor homework.
An uncle at the market weighed tomatoes and told me, without prompting, that rain at three means fewer deliveries by five. I wrote nothing else down.
The conversation felt private even though it happened in public. Expanding would have been borrowing his voice.
Someone left a paperback in the void deck with a bus ticket inside marking page ninety-one. I did not open it further.
Curiosity stopped at the ticket. A full piece would have invented a owner.
Three nights after Chin Swee I dreamed of wet asphalt that was not the same wet asphalt. Woke before writing anything useful.
Dream notes rarely survive daylight. Keeping this as a stub honours that without pretending clarity.
The radio played a song I knew from a school assembly twenty years ago. I stood in the kitchen until it finished.
Memory pieces need room. I had only five minutes before leaving for work.
A mynah on the corridor rail held eye contact longer than comfortable, then flew one floor down as if checking my follow-through.
Bird anecdotes age poorly unless you commit to humour or ecology. I committed to neither.
First notebook entry of the year was "shutter height / knee / always knee." I knew what I meant. Nobody else would.
Too cryptic for a full post. The pin board has the expanded lane piece now.