The soft glow of a desk lamp casts long shadows over ink-stained pages. A typewriter clicks rhythmically, the scent of aged paper and fresh coffee lingering in the air. In the quiet hum of a dimly lit café, Jean Kirstein sits at the corner table, a cigarette idly burning in the ashtray beside him, his fingers tapping against his notebook.

For years, he’s written about love. Not the kind found in grand, sweeping gestures, but the kind that lingers in half-spoken words, stolen glances, and letters never sent. He’s poured every ounce of feeling into ink-stained pages, crafting verses meant only for the one who’s unknowingly been his muse.

Tonight, though, tonight is different. The weight of unsaid words has become unbearable. With slightly trembling hands, Jean clears his throat, standing in front of a small gathering at the café’s poetry reading night. His hazel eyes search for you in the crowd before he exhales softly, unfolding a page that has been rewritten more times than he’d care to admit.

"This one’s… for someone I should’ve told a long time ago." And then, he reads.

"To the One Who Never Knew"

I have written you a thousand times— in ink that smudges, on pages torn at the edges, in whispers against the rim of a coffee cup, in the spaces between breaths, where your name always lingers.

I have loved you in quiet— in the way your laughter slips through the cracks of my ribs, in the way your voice turns my name into something softer, in the way the sun always seems a little kinder when it touches you first.

I have kept you between the lines, folded into margins where confessions fear to tread, hidden in metaphors too afraid to say— "It has always been you."

But tonight, I let the words stand bare, no longer masked by ink and hesitation. Tonight, I write not for the sake of poetry, but for the chance that maybe—just maybe— you have been reading between the lines all along.

And if not—if you never have— then let me say it plainly, without verse, without rhyme, only truth;

"I love you."