Solemn Peace

Twentynine years have slipped through my hands like smoke,

Nothing remained but fractured memories broke.

Nicotine stains on fingers that trembled at night,

Clutching at shadows that vanished from sight.

You were characters scrawled in margins unread,

Unfinished stories where nothing was said.

Like whispers from pages no one dared to turn,

You came with a flame, too brief to burn.

Did I leave a void in the chapters you wrote,

Or was I the silence your words couldn’t quote?

Most were hard lessons carved deep in my skin,

Taught in the hollows where trust shouldn’t begin.

There were no last words, no sorrowful cries,

Just quiet departures, as when someone dies.

I turned my back with no final goodbyes,

For some wounds are hidden in wide open eyes.

Perhaps in another,  far gentler place,

You’d be more than a ghost, more than a face.

But here you taught me that solitude sings,

Louder than love fired from venomous slings.

You never once saw me, nor wanted to stay,

You borrowed my trust, then faded away.

You smiled with kindness that mimicked the real,

While hiding a truth you refused to reveal.

Still, I hold no hatred, no venom or spite,

Only the cold, clean clarity of night.

Some loves are prisons, their bars made of glass,

Beautiful, brittle, and doomed not to last.

I bury you deep in the chapters unsaid,

Where silence is sacred, where angels fear tread.

Not with regret, nor curse, nor flame,

But with the solemn peace that forgets your name.

May our paths never cross again in this life,

No more to be bound by sorrow or strife.

I wish you your peace, as I’ve found my own,

Built from the ruins in my kingdom of stone.

I walk now unshackled, with scars worn as art,

Hands stained but steady, a mended heart.

You were never my ending, just pages I turned,

And now, from your ashes, a new fire has burned.

This is my farewell, my soft, final cry,

A hymn for the lost beneath mourning sky.

You were chapters unread, but I’ve closed the book,

No more ghosts in the corners where I once looked.