What a strange request
To beg the dawn to sleep once more,
To bid the tide retreat, forget
The footsteps swallowed on the shore.

Alright now then, what’s next?
The turning page, the ink that bleeds,
The tethered soul who dares reflect
A child’s dream lost in grown men’s deeds.

Mourn me the wonder in my eyes,
For in its place, a hollow gloom,
No star remains,
Only the shadow of a bloom.

Never thought I’d hold those days
Like yellowed scrolls in trembling hands,
Illiterate to youth’s own phrase,
Yet reading now what time demands.

How can it be? This ticking crime,
this slow betrayal dressed in time?
This slow betrayal robed in grace?
Let me vanish in their wake.