Step by step, up the rail—
submission in the climb,
villain’s fanfare in my ears.

Each step, something more.
Each reach, something less.

The key turns.
Nothing unlocks.
Failure is a state of being,
complicity just the cost.

We wept, we adored,
we mistook motion for meaning.
I keep climbing—
not toward,
just away.

I keep rhyming,
like it’ll change the shape of things,
like desolation sways if you hum the right tune.

Promise kept.
Hearts torn.
Is that not the trade?

I might be dead,
for all you know.
Or just misplaced,
like a ghost in a machine
that still says your name.

Just be well.
(Or whatever it is
that keeps you from looking back.)