After all this time

Hold me tonight, though the air feels thin,

though the warmth of your hands never touches my skin.

Wrap me in whispers, a breath, a trace,

let me pretend there’s still life in this space.

The stars look on, lifeless, hollow and still,

as though they’ve watched me bend to your will.

And the moon, half-lost, won’t speak your name

as it has learned, like me, the rules of this game.

 Lie if you must, as my ears crave your sound,

say you’ll be back when the world comes around.

Say this fracture was meant to mend,

that all broken paths will find their end.

I’ll wait in the ruins where our love once burned,

where the laughter faded and shadows turned.

I’ll wait where the sky collapses into blue,

where time forgets, but I’ll always remember you.

 I’ve been cold, since the day you went black,

since the clock froze hands, it can’t take back.

I don’t know who I’ve become tonight,

a man of stone, or a ghost in flight.

But even if the dawn refuses to rise,

and even if silence swallows the skies,

I’ll search the void for what can’t be seen,

a flicker of you in the in-between.

 If we met again where shadows bled,

would you still remember the words I said?

Would you know the weight I bore,

the love I carried, the ache I wore?

‘Cause I’d know you, through veils and flame,

through shapes that shift and masks unnamed.

I’d find you where the lost ones tread,

Where love isn’t spoken, where it’s felt instead. 

 So hold me again, though your hands aren’t near,

even as the memories sharpens to spears.

Even as touch turns fleeting and thin,

let me feel the ghost of where you’ve been.

Let me believe this hollow is whole,

let me cradle what’s left of my soul.

Because even in my dreams, the edges fray,

and the light you were, still slips away.

 If you could see what I’ve become,

would you still claim the man I run from?

Would you trace my scars like a map to the past,

or leave them untouched, let the moments last?

Because I would hold you, through fire and frost,

through every breath that this body has lost.

I’d cling to the shadow you leave behind,

a tether to what I’ll never tend to find.

 And even if this world unravels whole,

If time itself devours this aching soul,

I’d still wait in the fragments, the shattered and worn,

for the echo of you where hearts are torn.

So just hold me tonight, just a word, a spark,

a flicker of warmth in this endless dark.

Even if you’ve gone, burying me half-dead,

your name still burns where the living once bled.

-S.A.L.T