*
He walked at dawn with laughter on his lips,
Sunlight dancing in his eager eyes,
Each breath a promise on the morning breeze,
His heart a vessel brimming with delight.
The world unrolled in petals at his feet,
Hope tethered firmly to his every step,
He sculpted dreams in air, made them his own,
Unknowing of the faultlines far below.
A quiet doubt slipped through an open seam,
A whisper in the stillness of his chest,
He paused to wonder if the sky might fall,
And felt the tremor at his core begin.
Soft shadows gathered in his golden days,
Curtains drawn across the brightness of his mind,
He sought the sun but found it slipping past,
Like grains of sand that vanished through his hands.
Each morning now arrived with hollow eyes,
He rose to find the world in muted hues,
The laughter died before it left his throat,
And hollow echoes haunted every step.
His mirror showed a face he scarcely knew,
Hollow cheeks, a tremor in his hollow gaze,
He reached for joy but found an empty air,
A chasm yawning in his fractured mind.
He wandered streets that held no sanctuary,
Where every sight recalled a brighter past,
And memories turned bitter on his tongue,
Like fruit left rotting in the summer heat.
Nights stretched endless as a raven’s wing,
He sought in darkness answers none could give,
Each star a distant prison of cold light,
His soul entombed in hours without end.
A thousand pleas rose silent in his chest,
But lips refused to form the words of hope,
He sank beneath a tide of leaden grief,
And watched his heart submerge in shapeless fear.
The world contracted to a single breath,
Each gasp a battle waged inside his bones,
He drifted on a sea of empty hours,
No lighthouse guiding toward the shore.
Yet somewhere in the blackest of his nights,
A flicker sparked—a single fragile flame,
A thought that whisper-soft refused to die,
Perhaps the dawn could yet be born again.
He stooped to gather shards of fractured will,
Piecing broken fragments into fragile hope,
Each tiny triumph—raising eyelids,
Speaking one word against the silent void.
He found the strength to stand before the sun,
Though light still burned like truth upon his skin,
Step by trembling step he claimed the day,
A pilgrim seeking joy dissolved in tears.
He reached for friends who held his trembling hand,
Their voices weaving warmth into his veins,
Together mapping paths through haunted woods,
Till laughter trembled on reluctant lips.
In pages of a book, he met himself,
A kindred spirit rising from the flames,
He penned his pain on crisp and hopeful lines,
And felt the ink restore his broken frame.
The sky returned in color to his eyes,
A symphony of dawn returned to sound,
He breathed the world as though for first embrace,
Each heartbeat drumming life in glad reprise.
He walked again where golden blossoms grew,
Their petals shimmered with a hum of light,
He plucked one bloom and pressed it to his heart,
A keepsake of the night he’d left behind.
His laughter rose like bells upon the breeze,
No longer captive to the shadows’ call,
He forged his joy from scars that once were pain,
A testament to how the mind can heal.
At dusk he stood upon life’s turning crest,
Embracing both the darkness and the glow,
For he had learned that victory is born
When dawn and dusk entwine within the soul.
And so he wears his sunrise on his face,
A crown of hope that flaws cannot reclaim,
The shattered mind, now whole through trial’s fire,
Emerged in light to walk the world anew.
