In the temple of unspoken mornings,
a door swings, not ajar but wide—
its hinges weep, long unkissed by oil,
long bent by winds that come from
nowhere.

Do you feel it, too? The way the air
clutches its throat, as though words
have gathered there in clumps of
breathless apology?

This is how time unravels:
slowly, like wet silk pulled
too hard through the eye of a needle.
It frays at the edges, whispers
of all the threads we never wove.

The earth remembers us only as echoes.
Fingers pressed once into
its forgiving skin—
a palmprint gone before
it understands its shape.

Once, I dreamed of rivers:
not the sharp-edged kind
that cut their way through stone,
but rivers made of shadows,
of choices we left behind
to drown.

And what are we,
but the sum of our silences?
The rooms we entered
and left untouched?

I stand here now,
on the lip of the great dark,
and the stars—oh,
the stars—
bend low to meet me.

I wonder if they, too,
are waiting for
a voice that doesn’t
break
when it speaks.

The threshold murmurs underfoot,
a breath of welcome,
or warning, or both.
This is the place where endings
begin—
where even the smallest light
is an earthquake
in the soul.