A shoebox of letters
hand written on yellow looseleaf
pages upon pages of promises
written in red ink,
a coffin in need of a burial
a reminder of a life
and a love denied.

February 14th, 1989
penned within my first year
the name at the top is not mine
but she writes to him
the way you will write to me
only two decades later.

I shiver as I read each draft;
to realize our failed romance
was but an echo of the past.