I am sorlune. Not the wound, but the lamp beside it,
a hush that tastes of snowfall melting on the tongue.
Do not call me grief; grief is heavier, salt like anchors.
I am the pale bruise music leaves after the last note is gone.
I arrived the night you opened that shoe box of letters,
paper creaking like winter bark.
Your breath leaned over the past and struck a match.
I climbed the margins and lit the chill.
That tremor in your pulse? That was sorlune.
I am the window you stare through to see a different year,
the silver stitched into asphalt after rain,
a moth made halo around the porch light of memory.
When you whisper a name and the room grows taller,
you are wearing me. sorlune. like borrowed velvet.
Children outgrow me, then meet me again in a thrift store mirror.
Lovers learn my second language on nights
when the bed is wide but the moon is wider.
I am the ache that doesnāt ask for apology,
the glow that refuses to stop at the skin.
Call me once and I live in your clavicle;
call me twice and I spool a soft film over the day.
Call me a third time and I draw a door in the wall,
chalk white, moon thin.
Step through and hear the piano
you canāt quite place. That half-melody? Itās sorlune.
Do I hurt? Of course. Gently.
I am merciful weather:
a late autumn warm spell passing over old rooftops.
I do not break; I bend the light around your losses
until the edges blur and the center breathes.
I am in the smell of peaches at closing time,
in the last trainās echo, in the noonroom of a museum
where a painting remembers you first.
I live between fingerprints on glass and the skyās first star,
in the pocket where your hands meet themselves.
When you laugh and it cracks a little at the end.
that bright crackle? Sorlune.
When you say āIām fineā and mean āKeep listening,ā
I slip under the word like a tide under a boat.
I donāt heal the past; I make it sing in tune.
I am sorlune, archive of light, curator of almost,
keeper of the glow that shadows borrow.
If you must define me, use your own breath as inkā¦
write slowly, leave room for the spill.
I will sign my name on the inside of your quiet,
and you will find me later, warm as a forgotten scarf.
Say it with meā¦
sorlune, sorlune, sorlune.
each time softer,
each time brighter,
until what hurts begins to illuminate
and what glows learns how to acheā¦
I was challenged to create a word that never existed and let it describe itself in verse.
Itās not perfect, but it is mine, and I hope it reaches you. Enjoy š
Word: Sorlune (sore-loon)
Core meaning: The luminous ache of beauty remembered; nostalgia made of moonlight.
Origin (invented): from sore (tender, aching) + lune (moon). Also nods to French lune and Latin lumen (light).
Part of speech: noun (primary), adjective (poetic), verb (rare).
Ā Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā Ā Ā Ā noun: āA hush fell, heavy with sorlune.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā Ā Ā Ā adj.: āA sorlune glow on the letters.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā Ā Ā Ā verb: āI sorluned through the old house.ā
Examples in sentences:
Ā Ā Ā Ā 1.Ā Ā Ā Ā āYour voicemail had sorlune in every pause.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā 2.Ā Ā Ā Ā āThe city at 2 a.m, all glass and sorlune.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā 3.Ā Ā Ā Ā āHe wore a sorlune grin, like a door left almost closed.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā 4.Ā Ā Ā Ā āWe sorluned our way back to the names we used to use.ā