The sky still tastes of iron,
wet breath of old storms swallowing the hills,
where I once ran without shoes,
spitting laughter into the wind
a feral thing, a child-king,
ruling over stick-sword battles and mud-caked thrones.

Now the air is thinner,
clouds scatter like ghosts too tired to haunt,
and my hands—old gnarled roots
grasp at echoes,
at the soft whisper of a name
I have long forgotten but never lost,
can you hear my whisper.

She was there once
braiding summer into my hair,
fingers like sparrow wings,
light, delicate, fleeting.
Her voice, a river bending
through the cracked earth ridge of my ribs,
shaping me, eroding me,
leaving only the hollow hum of her song.

Dreams came then,
painted on the walls of my skull,
wild beasts of hope,
ran freely,
howling beneath a sky where every star was a promise.
I swore I'd never leave,
never turn to dust,
never let time claw its name into my bones.

But here I am,
watching the sky bleed out another evening,
knowing that clouds
no matter how heavy with memory
will always disappear.