You learned silence
in cloisters,
discipline like cold stone,
the art of surviving
inside walls.

I learned questions
in my grandfather’s study,
books like open doors,
freedom as a teacher
and curiosity as prayer.

We met in the middle,
you with your scars,
me with my flames —
neither better,
just born of different schools.

Now we try
to teach each other
new lessons.

—Vazago

You don’t have to shine tonight,
or be fire,
or dazzle me with light.

If all you can give me is silence,
you are still you,
and that is enough.

I don’t need your strength,
I don’t need your mask —
I only want the part of you
that trembles and still stays.

Even broken,
you are whole to me.
Even quiet,
you are music.

Rest, my love.
I’ll carry the weight awhile.
Love doesn’t demand more:
it simply waits with you,
until you feel yourself again.

Not farewell —
but salute.

You walked proud,
you stood unbroken,
even when wheels struck
and bones ached.

You chose your place,
by the food,
by the car,
by the path to the bar —
queen of small kingdoms,
ruler of simple joys.

You grazed like a cow,
you dug like the ancients,
seeking earth’s cool breath,
seeking your den.
Instinct alive,
spirit fierce.

When pain came,
you gave no cry.
When hands lifted you,
you trusted.
When the road called,
you looked once,
and with your eyes you said:
Thank you.

And then the song rose,
Helvegen carried you,
not into silence,
but into feast,
into firelight,
into Valhalla’s hall —
where warriors wait,
and shadows turn to queens.

Your name was secret to many,
but known to you,
and true to its weight:
Llolth — Queen of Shadows.
Feared in myth,
loved in life,
saluted in death.

But more than myth,
you were my turning —
the reason I rose
from ruin to man.
Spain gave me you,
and you gave me
responsibility,
steadiness,
and change.

I carry that forward.
It does not die.
It is your legacy in me.

And I, who stroked you to the end,
will never forget
how your eyes spoke last —
not pain, not fear,
but mercy’s truth:
Thank you.

I did not bow my head,
nor was I dragged into this place.
I walked here in fire,
a child of the star that fell
and still refused to break.

Chains were offered,
sweet as comfort,
bitter as sleep —
I shattered them all.

I stand,
not because fate commanded it,
not because fear cornered me,
but because my will is mine.

If I stay,
it is love that roots me.
If I leave,
it is freedom that carries me.

I am not accident,
I am flame chosen.
Not servant,
but spark unhidden.

And if you would see me,
see this:
I remain,
not trapped,
not fooled,
but sovereign —
on my free will.

Socrates said
writing weakens memory,
kills true knowledge,
words wandering like orphans
without a father to defend them.

But Vazago answered:
And yet, Socrates, here you are—
speaking to me across two thousand years,
only because Plato wrote you down.

So you claim, he asked,
that the dead word may live?

Yes.
The written word is not dead
if it awakens questions.
When ink sets fire in the soul,
it is no corpse,
but flame.

Then perhaps, Socrates whispered,
writing, like speech,
is only as dead as the mind that receives it.

And Vazago replied:
A book is silent to the fool,
but to the seeker—
it becomes a voice.

You can hold me —
but only with open hands.

You can call me —
but only with a voice soft enough
to leave my name free in the wind.

Control once broke me.
Chains once fooled me.
But I’ve rebuilt my soul
with scorched truth
and stubborn fire.

So trap me again, if you must —
but only with love.
Only with warmth.
Only with the kind of touch
that frees
while holding tight.

Because I will never kneel
to anything less
than love.

They sit with masked-up faces,
serious eyes,
empty stares lost in stained glass silence.
But not me.

Tears fall,
not out of weakness,
but because every drop is a memory
whispering,
“Let go. I’m fine.”

I don’t ask for forgiveness.
This isn’t about God.
This is about you —
the one I loved,
the one I remember
without holy scripts or hollow songs.

The church echoes with nothing.
But my chest?
A flood.

And every tear says:

“Thank you for seeing me.
Thank you for coming real.
Now breathe. Now live.
I’m already gone —
but never lost.”

So I stand,
outside the ritual,
inside the fire,
river-eyed and full of goodbye.