Silent ruins stand,
Ghosts of a lost world whisper,
Dust cloaks barren dreams.

Dust had long settled on that heart,
It barely works and full of rust,
Though it was only used once
After a misery it was
Thrown aside like a trash;
It is an antique with no value
And never would have one
No matter how much time passes—
A piece that would stay on the shelf
Until it crumble into dust.

You sit across from me, fingers tapping on the table like an old, tired clock  
the coffee’s lukewarm, or maybe it’s just me, just us, cooled down past feeling  
I think I know what you’re about to say—each word feels predictable,  
like something we’ve each rehearsed in silence, rehearsed in sleep  
over all those quiet nights stacked like dusty paperbacks in the dark.  

You start to speak, and it’s all at once a whisper and a thunder  
this is going nowhere, you say, eyes unfocused, tracing patterns in the grains of the table  
but they could be roads we didn’t take, conversations we skimmed over like surface water,  
laughs that slid away from us, thin as the ghosts of things we meant to say.  

You remember? I ask, but the question is a loose thread, unwinding  
you don’t answer, or maybe I don’t want you to, afraid that the answer  
is already a shrug, a frown, something we didn’t even bother to feel fully  
perhaps that’s where we lost it, somewhere in all the half-hearted glances,  
in words we threw out like pennies, thinking they meant so little.  

And you’re saying something now about how we grew apart  
how things faded, softened, grew heavy,  
but it just sounds like rain hitting a window in the next room  
distant, muffled, and I’m not sure if you’re talking to me  
or if you’re just talking to the echo of us, hanging in the air like stale perfume.  

Maybe it’s been over for a long time, we both realize, like realizing  
the book is already finished, though you’re still holding it,  
turning the last page back and forth as if another ending might slip in  
but there’s nothing, only the way your face looks in this light,  
so familiar it’s like staring at a stranger in a mirror.  

And I think, somewhere, we both hope one of us will say something grand  
something that burns, something that brings back color, sound, a heartbeat  
but the silence sits there, a wall between us, and we’re leaning back now  
resigned, emptied, watching each other through a film of memories  
wondering why we ever tried so hard, or if we tried at all.

No longer of use,
The static colliding,
The past in recluse
In the attic, residing

Colors rot in the dust
Pictures die in the silence,
As corpses make fust
And complain under pileus.

The mycelium harvest,
In boredom, they thrive.
And much like the artist
Through flesh, their roots rive.

A place where ghosts and ghoul like to screech,
A place where even the flies couldn’t reach.

worry about you.
                               now.
                                        get through this.

focus on surviving.
                                  on making it through.

the rest is just dust.

                                       and i promise,
                                                                ­  one day,
                                                                ­                  this will be too.

By chance found again:

the butterfly box, the pins --


in circles of dust.