Once, there was a shop
at the heart of the neighbourhood
a small kingdom of dust and laughter
where children arrived like morning birds,
carrying noise in their pockets.
Behind the counter
sat a drunk man
not drunk on wine alone,
but on something older…
something that refused to leave his chest.
He sang
not for the coins,
not for the passing days,
but for a girl
who lived next door to his soul.
She would pass like a quiet wound,
eyes lowered,
as if love were a secret
she had no permission to keep.
“Don’t forget me,”
his voice would crack into the evening,
“Don’t forget me…
and remember the drunkard.”
And we
we and the birds
used to circle that place,
as if it were a shrine,
as if sorrow itself had taken a shape
we could orbit.
We carried flowers
bundles of them
as if beauty could bribe time,
as if petals could stitch
what fate had already torn.
But he
he was always somewhere else…
lost between a bottle
and a memory.
He painted her on the walls
again and again
a thousand versions of her face
trying to outlive the one that left.
Then one night
on the soft betrayal of festival
she vanished.
No goodbye,
no echo,
no mercy.
Only absence…
thick as dust.
The shop was torn down
as if it had never held laughter,
as if songs could be demolished
with bricks.
A house rose in its place
clean, indifferent,
unaware of the ghosts
buried in its foundation.
And the drunkard?
He remained.
Not in the street,
not in the house
but on the walls of forgetting,
where time erases gently,
and pain learns to whisper
instead of scream.
There
he still sings.
And if you listen closely,
you will hear him:
“Don’t forget me…”
Apr 22
Apr 22, 2026 at 12:34 AM UTC
Once, there was a shop
at the heart of the neighbourhood
a small kingdom of dust and laughter
where children arrived like morning birds,
carrying noise in their pockets.
Behind the counter
sat a drunk man
not drunk on wine alone,
but on something older…
something that refused to leave his chest.
He sang
not for the coins,
not for the passing days,
but for a girl
who lived next door to his soul.
She would pass like a quiet wound,
eyes lowered,
as if love were a secret
she had no permission to keep.
“Don’t forget me,”
his voice would crack into the evening,
“Don’t forget me…
and remember the drunkard.”
And we
we and the birds
used to circle that place,
as if it were a shrine,
as if sorrow itself had taken a shape
we could orbit.
We carried flowers
bundles of them
as if beauty could bribe time,
as if petals could stitch
what fate had already torn.
But he
he was always somewhere else…
lost between a bottle
and a memory.
He painted her on the walls
again and again
a thousand versions of her face
trying to outlive the one that left.
Then one night
on the soft betrayal of festival
she vanished.
No goodbye,
no echo,
no mercy.
Only absence…
thick as dust.
The shop was torn down
as if it had never held laughter,
as if songs could be demolished
with bricks.
A house rose in its place
clean, indifferent,
unaware of the ghosts
buried in its foundation.
And the drunkard?
He remained.
Not in the street,
not in the house
but on the walls of forgetting,
where time erases gently,
and pain learns to whisper
instead of scream.
There
he still sings.
And if you listen closely,
you will hear him:
“Don’t forget me…”
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