I saw yonder—
leaves the colour of rusted coins
flattened into the soil,
their veins crumbling at a touch.
Coffee-stained envelopes lay scattered,
their paper-thin as skin,
ink bled blue by rain,
a Paris stamp whispering 1928
from a corner eaten by time.
They kept company with a bruised brown apple,
bitten once, abandoned,
its sweetness turned to rot
in the chill of a narrow room
in the mammoth province of Brandenburg, Prussia.
The rickety Tudor house groaned—
timbers bowing like old men,
windows clouded with breath
that had not been drawn in years.
The past lingered here,
a pale thing pacing the halls,
knocking without fists,
begging to be loosed.
Cobwebs clung to my wrists,
dust rising like breath
as I pried open the forgotten mail—
letters folded and refolded,
addresses crossed out,
sentences that never found their mouths.
“Let’s ride the rails,” he said.
His voice—young, low, certain—
rang through me
like iron striking iron.
My knees softened.
The floor tilted.
“We should get going.”
Two women in white scrubs
smelled of soap and starch,
their hands firm, practiced, final.
Step by step,
I was lifted onto wheels
that hummed and rattled,
carrying me through corridors of echo
toward a place newly named,
a place I would never call home.
The economy collapsed like wet paper.
The war broke what remained.
Yet memory stayed—
warm as breath inside the chest,
refusing burial,
refusing silence.
It never died.
Sep 29, 2018
Sep 29, 2018 at 5:43 PM UTC
I saw yonder—
leaves the colour of rusted coins
flattened into the soil,
their veins crumbling at a touch.
Coffee-stained envelopes lay scattered,
their paper-thin as skin,
ink bled blue by rain,
a Paris stamp whispering 1928
from a corner eaten by time.
They kept company with a bruised brown apple,
bitten once, abandoned,
its sweetness turned to rot
in the chill of a narrow room
in the mammoth province of Brandenburg, Prussia.
The rickety Tudor house groaned—
timbers bowing like old men,
windows clouded with breath
that had not been drawn in years.
The past lingered here,
a pale thing pacing the halls,
knocking without fists,
begging to be loosed.
Cobwebs clung to my wrists,
dust rising like breath
as I pried open the forgotten mail—
letters folded and refolded,
addresses crossed out,
sentences that never found their mouths.
“Let’s ride the rails,” he said.
His voice—young, low, certain—
rang through me
like iron striking iron.
My knees softened.
The floor tilted.
“We should get going.”
Two women in white scrubs
smelled of soap and starch,
their hands firm, practiced, final.
Step by step,
I was lifted onto wheels
that hummed and rattled,
carrying me through corridors of echo
toward a place newly named,
a place I would never call home.
The economy collapsed like wet paper.
The war broke what remained.
Yet memory stayed—
warm as breath inside the chest,
refusing burial,
refusing silence.
It never died.
