And she, in her quiet torment, bore the weight of a thousand sorrows,
her heart a vessel cracked by the tides of betrayal.
The years, like autumn leaves, fell away,
each one a whisper of love's illusion,
each one a thread torn from the tapestry of her being.

She gazed upon him, the architect of her undoing,
his slumber a mockery of peace.
His promises were but shadows, fleeting and insubstantial,
like petals scattered by the wind,
trampled beneath the careless march of time.
And the sea, ancient and eternal, called to her,
its voice a hymn of solace,
a beckoning to let the weight of her shame
be carried away by its ceaseless waves.

They moved together, bound in a dance of anguish,
their steps etched into the earth like scars.
Love and hate wove their lives into a single thread,
a cord that choked her spirit and set her soul aflame.
He was the mirror in which she saw too much,
his truths a blade that cut too deep.
Each night, she drank from the chalice of despair,
her soul dissolving like mist in the morning sun.

Outside, the reeds wept with the rain,
bending beneath the weight of unspoken grief.
She thought of forgiveness, a fragile bird,
its wings clipped by her pain.
She thought of escape, a door locked from within,
and death, a cold lover waiting in the shadows.

Alone, she walked beneath a godless sky,
her prayers unanswered, her faith a shattered relic.
The dreams she had nurtured were slain,
their blood staining the soil of her heart.
Yet in the quiet ruins of her despair,
she found a strange and hollow strength.
The stones of her sorrow became a foundation,
and from the ashes of her ruin,
she began to rise,
unbroken, unafraid,
a whisper of light in the endless dark.

She turned her face,
smooth as the moon’s cold arc,
away from the storm in my arms,
the tempest she refused to see.
The scars climbed my skin—
rungs on a ladder of grief,
each carved line a scream
swallowed by the vast, uncaring sky.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said,
her voice, brittle as dry reeds,
fragile in its tight restraint.
The bitter breath of black coffee,
the smoky veil of cigarettes,
stood between us,
a wall, a barrier of indifference.

But I,
I called to life the crimson river,
its rush fierce, its truth undeniable.
Words failed where the blade did not,
its edge a preacher, sharp and sure.
Joy, sorrow, despair—
all bled the same,
their stories painted on my skin.

Then came the pills,
like stones pressing the ocean floor.
Heavy salvation, they dragged me deep,
into waters where I was no one—
a shadow bloated with silence.
Dreams came, sharp as talons,
tearing through the darkened halls
of my restless soul.

“You’re nothing now,” she said,
her words a whip with pity’s sting.
“No one will love what you’ve become.”

But oh, the demons loved me well,
their hunger unyielding,
their feast endless.
They claimed my broken pieces,
traded one vice for another,
devoured the echoes of who I was.

And now, she is quiet.
The night stretches on, long and lean,
its silence a river where I wade alone,
listening to the hollow song
of their eternal feast.