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The matchbox
was hers—
bright red
with a tiger on it,
its head tilted
like it knew the ending.

One match left.
He kept it
in the drawer
beside loose buttons,
an eye drop bottle
half full,
a packet of salt
from a meal
they never finished.

He never lit it.

Not when
the bulb blew
above the stove.
Not when
monsoon took the power
three nights straight.

He’d reach—
then pause.
Then close the drawer
softly.

Until
the day
her number stopped ringing.

He struck it.

Once.

It flared—
brief, bright,
then gone.

The drawer
still smells
like her.
A poem about memory, grief, and the small things we keep — and finally let go.
Madelyn Apr 25
Did you ever think of staying?
Or was leaving the only way
you knew how to love me?

Was I too much,
or not enough?
Did I ask for things
you couldn’t give,
or did you offer less
than you were able?

I wonder if you held back your truth
to protect me,
or to protect yourself
from watching me fall apart.

The answers don’t come.
But the questions—
they stay.
Lodged somewhere between
my ribs and my memory,
quiet,
persistent,
unanswered.
I still wonder. I just don’t ask out loud anymore.
-M. Adelyn
We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.

We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.

You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.

You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.

I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.

You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.

I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.

I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.

As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.

— The End —