I loved you in the hush between two sighs,
Where glances flickered, stars that lost their flame.
Your voice, though gentle, bore no soft replies,
No echo shaped itself around my name.

I offered verses, filaments of grace,
Fine bridges spun from breath and tethered fire,
But you, like frost that veils a summer's face,
Withheld the warmth my trembling hopes required.

You did not break me. No, you were too kind.
Yet kindness, cold, can cut like polished steel.
A smile, misplaced, can hollow out the mind;
And silence teaches wounds too deep to heal.

So I retreat. Not bitter, but erased—
A violin, unheld, in silence cased.
Still strung with song that none will understand,
Still turned toward you, an unanswered command.