The day fell like a crumpled note,
tossed into the wastebasket of time,
a whisper, a cough, a footstep fading,
the sound of nothing,
the echo of things left unsaid.
I walked through streets without pavement,
over stones that remembered me not.
Each window was an eye, unblinking,
a stare of glass indifferent to grief.
The wind pressed against my cheek,
not a caress, not a blow,
just a presence,
like the weight of a name no longer called.
I did not weep, though my heart did,
a different kind of pain,
a betrayal of the body's rituals.
Tears demand permission,
but silence sneaks in, unbidden,
settles between the ribs,
lodges behind the throat,
a ghost pressing against the edges of breath.
And so the hours unravelled,
like a frayed sleeve in a forgotten coat,
threadbare, loose at the seams,
and still I walked,
searching for the shape of sorrow,
in the absence of rain.
Night came in its sensible shoes,
soft-footed, practical, gray.
No stars, no moon,
only the hum of a world
that did not know I was breaking.
I sat on the edge of the bed,
hands resting like relics on my knees.
And the heart wept again,
as it always does,
quietly,
where no one can see.
Copyright 2024 Savva Emanon ©
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