The scent of autumn lingers like an unspoken goodbye,
hanging in the air, thick with memories I cannot erase.
The crisp whisper of dying leaves grazes my skin—
a ghostly echo of your touch, fleeting and bittersweet.
Once, we walked upon these very leaves,
crushing them beneath careless footsteps,
the way you crushed my heart—without hesitation, without pause.

You vanished like the wind,
leaving no footprint, no farewell,
just a silence so deafening it swallowed me whole.
And yet, even in your absence, you haunt me.
What are you up to now?
Do you ever stop and wonder if the ashes of what we were
still smolder somewhere within me?

Time, they say, heals all wounds.
But what of the wounds that refuse to close?
Seasons passed, but the winter inside me stayed.
I thought I would move on with the turning of the leaves,
but my heart remained shackled to the past.

I nurtured us.
Planted seeds of tenderness,
watered them with love,
let the sunlight of my devotion bathe them.
But in the dark, it was only winterberry—
beautiful to the eye, poisonous to the touch.
And you, you did not just let it wither.
You diseased the roots.
You let it rot while I still believed it could bloom.

You did not just leave.
You hollowed me out.
You splintered my soul,
turned my love into a sickness I could not cure.
I was left clawing at the remains of myself,
desperate to bring life back to what you destroyed.

Now I walk, but I do not feel alive.
My heart no longer races, no longer aches—it is still, frozen.
My blood has turned to red crystals, sharp and jagged,
reflecting regret, hatred, frustration.
A ruin, a monument to everything we could have been.

Was it fate?
Fate is a cruel joke told by the heartbroken.
No, this was not fate—this was deception,
dressed in the warmth of a lover’s arms.

My lips, once softened by your whispers,
are now cold as winter’s first frost.
Had I known I was merely a pen in your hand,
used until the ink bled dry,
I would have never written our story.

Move on, they tell me.
As if love were a season to be endured and forgotten.
As if I did not love you the way Giselle loved—
blind, unknowing, doomed from the start.