gray nimbus
They gathered beneath me in silence,
faces lifted as if the night were a confessional—
each breath carrying words they dared not release by day,
I felt them rise like threads of smoke,
fragile yet burning against the chill,
a tremor of love too distant to hold,
a grief hidden beneath daylight’s veil,
a child asking only for morning to arrive softer than before—
I gathered them as one gathers fading warmth,
without voice, without judgment,
as though my glow could stitch their confessions into constellations,
each murmur wove deeper than flame or stone,
their longing brushed against me like small hands on an ember,
and I learned to burn a little longer—
not for myself,
but for the countless eyes that trusted I was listening—
and even now as my edges scatter into quiet cold,
their voices still move with me unseen,
and though I dissolve into dark,
the weight of every secret, every quiet plea,
travels still inside me—
beyond the end of my light
buoyant merlin
thorn shell
stable pewter