Chronicles

How strange it is to dance with one not real,

Our footsteps echo through a ruined hall.

The marble breaks beneath our weightless heel,

Yet still we move, unshaken by the fall.

Your ghost and I—how effortless we glide,

Though you feel firm, more real than flesh and bone.

You press against the hollow space inside,

And call it love, though I remain alone.

I feel your touch—too vivid for a dream,

A phantom warmth that lingers on my skin.

Your face slips past me, flickering between

A fading truth and what has never been.

Were you but mist, illusion made from ache?

Did we once dance, or only wish we could?

When did you leave, and what did I forsake?

Did love grow cold, or was it never good?

Were these my arms too frozen to embrace?

Was I the one who let the silence grow?

Too frigid was my love to hold your grace,

Too dull to feel the fire we used to know.

This hall decays—its bones begin to split,

The beams collapse, the floor is choked by vines.

Yet something green still reaches through the grit,

Still stretching upward through the twisted lines.

Did it once house the love we thought we made?

Or did we fill its rooms with make-believe?

Now candles die, the dust begins to fade,

And music plays for those who do not grieve.

We twirl, like dancers locked in silvered glass,

A music box whose song has long since passed.