They’ll never notice—
not in a place like this,
where sorrow is stitched into sonnets
and pain rhymes with grace.

They’ll never ask—
not when metaphors mask the weight,
when a sigh in a stanza
is just art, not ache.

They’ll never suspect—
not when every line is dressed in beauty,
when ink drowns the whispers
too quiet to hear.

They’ll never know—
not unless they read between
the spaces where silence lingers,
where the words don’t quite say
what they mean.

I tell myself—just a little longer,
though the weight is heavy, the air too thick.
The sun rises, but I do not reach for it,
only watch as light fades before it touches me.

The days blur like water down a window,
quiet, slipping, never quite clear.
Each breath feels borrowed,
each step, a whisper of effort.

But somewhere, a bird still sings for me,
soft notes curling in the wind.
Somewhere, a hand might reach back if I reach first,
a voice might call my name and mean it.

So I stay—just a little longer,
for the chance that tomorrow might feel lighter,
that the night might hold me gently
instead of pressing me into the dark.

I don’t know if it will,
but for now, I tell myself—
just a little longer.

A hush upon the water’s crest,
where morning spills in golden rest,
a figure drifts in light’s embrace—
a dancer poised in fluid grace.

She bends, she sways, a feathered sigh,
her alabaster wings comply,
each ripple waltzes at her feet,
as if the lake and she compete.

No step misplaced, no hurried flight,
she moves as if she weighs but light,
a whisper in the dawn’s repose,
where every motion softly flows.

Yet in the dusk where moonlight wanes,
another shadow breaks the chains.
A glint of coal, a sharpened glide,
a phantom in the silver tide.

Her beauty sings a darker song,
a wilder pulse, both fierce and strong.
No fragile twirl, no measured bow—
she rules the water, here and now.

She cuts the lake with silent power,
the night bends low, the stars turn sour.
A haunting echo in her wake—
a ghost of grace, a breath to take.

One swan to soothe, one swan to strike,
one day, one night, both wrong, both right.
Two echoes spun from fates untold—
one draped in white, one cloaked in gold.