A Long Life Goodnight

My chest holds echoes none can hear, A hush of thoughts that won’t appear. What once was warm, now drifts like mist, A weight unseen, too dense to lift. Each fracture blooms a quieter scar, Where bitter seeds still bloom afar. No shore, no flame, no sense of tide— Just vacant halls I roam inside. By day I wear a borrowed face, By night I vanish into space. Thorns have grown where roses laid, And joy, like wind, has slipped away. I feel the pull to slip below, To whisper what I’ll never show. My voice is dust, it meets no ear— A silent scream no one can hear. You shimmer still within my dusk, A faded gleam in memories’ husk. I dream we speak as once we did— Before the cold began to bid. No bitterness could take your place, You linger deep, a shadow’s grace. But where you stood, now hollow lies— A soul grown thin beneath the skies. One truth remains, untouched by time: A trace of you, forever mine. A tether neither blade nor night Could sever from this ghostly light. Am I undone, or just concealed? A mask of calm, a truth unsealed. Not hate, nor wrath, I seek to wield— Just peace in ground that’s never healed. I light no fire, I raise no fight— Just tears that fall beyond the night. So now I breathe this fading rite— Oh Lord, please grant A Long Life Goodnight. ____________________________________________________ Author’s Note: 'A Long Life Goodnight" was born from the quiet spaces of loss and memory—those invisible echoes we carry in our hearts that no one else can hear. It explores the fragile boundary between presence and absence, where love lingers as a faint, ghostly light even in the coldest moments. Though the pain feels heavy and unyielding, the poem seeks not anger or bitterness, but a peaceful acceptance of what remains unseen and unsaid. It is a silent prayer for healing and a long, gentle farewell to the shadows that dwell within.