The cargo that won't cross the river

I'm standing on the bank with everything I've ever failed to carry — crates of unsent letters, jars of languages nobody speaks anymore, a broken clock that still keeps someone else's time. The ferryman doesn't ask what any of it is; he just looks at my load, then at me, and nods like he's seen this crossing before. We both know the river won't take it all, so I start choosing what to let sink. What stays in my arms keeps changing into things I didn't know I was holding — a child's pencil grip, the smell of coffee from a translation I abandoned mid-sentence. I wake up before the crossing ends,