On a warm summer night,
I glanced through my rearview mirror,
the city that broke me
now bathed in light.
Lightning stitched silver threads
along the crowns of distant mountains,
touching only the heights
as if heaven refused to descend.

I carried silence beside me,
sorrow unsaid,
grief unnamed.
This city, so swift with its vengeance,
gave me nothing but closed doors
and hollow days.

Still, I remember—
not the struggle,
but the way Albuquerque shimmered
in that final glance,
beautiful in retreat,
like something holy I could never hold.

Watering the garden, this small, quiet grace,
brings comfort in these twilight days.
Yet life does not linger, it slips like sand
through the trembling veil of our weathered hands.

A moment, no more, is ours to hold:
don’t stumble, don’t blink, don’t look away.
Even now, the past calls bold,
as if memory could make time stay.

With a mind like film, unspoiled and clear,
I’d frame the days I once held dear.
Is this the edge of dream or fall?
A ghost of joy...or none at all?

I heard you
in the quiet breaking.
Your name
ran under my skin.
But I stayed where shadows don’t speak,
safe in the blur of nothing said.

I meant to go.
I meant to move.
But comfort clung
like cold to bone.
And I let you stand
in the hush I made,
not knowing
what it cost.

I tasted guilt
in the back of my throat,
dry as dust on a still road.
I dreamed of saying something real.
But morning
always comes too fast.

Now I trace
the edge of your absence.
Wish I had burned
a little brighter,
been the fire
you looked for
when the light went out.