THE LANTERNS DIM

 

THE LANTERNS DIM

How unfortunate,

that I snuffed out my belief in you,

in your words—

once radiant as lanterns

swaying in a tempest’s grip,

their golden flames licking the dark,

calling me home

to a hearth of molten promises,

meant to unshackle my spirit

from doubt’s iron clasp.

But those lights guttered,

swallowed by a fog

of soot-black whispers,

and I turned my back,

ears ringing with their dying embers’ hiss.  

Though my movements falter,

these footsteps, slow as creeping frost,

etch a reluctant eviction from you—

each tread a chisel strike,

carving a chasm

through earth scorched and brittle,

a pilgrimage over dunes

of ash and splintered bone.

In fairness, you’ve squandered

more than three strikes,

more than nine lives—

a tapestry of chances

frayed to gossamer strands,

unraveling in the wind’s cruel teeth,

its howl a requiem

for trust I buried deep.  

Anger surges,

a riptide of molten tar,

banishing me from logic’s lighthouse,

rationality’s crisp parchment,

even repression’s velvet shroud.

It roars through me,

a furnace blast

scorching the caverns of my ribs,

its acrid smoke

stinging my eyes,

blinding me to the shore

where reason once stood firm.

I drift,

a shipwrecked soul,

tossed on waves of rust-red rage.  

And there you stand,

before me,

your tears glinting

like icicles weeping in a thaw,

each prism a fractured lens

mirroring my own grey—

a slate sky,

veiled by cataracts of confusion,

their milky swirls

blurring disbelief’s jagged cliffs,

and the trembling, dew-soaked

baby-steps of goodbye.

You plead forevers,

voice quivering

like a bow across snapped strings,

but it splinters

against the granite wall

of my hollowed resolve.  

How unfortunate,

that I glimpse myself in you—

not the radiant dreamer,

but a wraith,

etched in ash and frost,

face pocked by the relentless

drizzle of disillusionment’s acid rain.

The air hums,

laden with the rot

of wilted lavender and damp earth,

and my footsteps thunder,

a drumbeat of retreat,

kicking up clouds

of parched dust and regret.  

The horizon gleams,

a blade of tarnished silver,

slicing through the shroud of dusk,

and I stumble toward it,

clutching the husks

of words I once worshipped,

now crumbling like dried petals

in a gale’s bruising grasp.

Unfortunate, yes,

but inescapable,

as I shed the weight of us,

step by shivering step,

leaving behind

a silhouette