near tulip
To love is to walk until the road disappears,
to keep stepping even when the earth
has nothing left to give.
At the edge,
you learn the body is not enough—
that hands clutching air
can only hold memory,
that silence is heavier
than any stone.
We carry them anyway—
the ones who left mid-sentence,
whose voices turned into photographs.
Their absence is a portrait
we prop against our ribs,
pretending its flat surface
still offers warmth.
And the world does not collapse.
It hovers, suspended,
as if daring us to fall,
while we balance
on the thin plank of remembrance,
a fragile bridge
to someone who is gone.
torn veldt
sweet tartan
