The Unfamiliar Line

I look at the same joyful face, At the same old table, same time, same place. The date returns— I feel that fear, She’ll speak again. She’s always near. The clock, it ticks like ghostly chimes, Reminding me of borrowed times. “She reassured me with an unfamiliar line” She’s said it now at least a hundred times. For six long centuries she’s stayed the same, While I grow old and lose my name. Her eyes still shimmer, her smile still glows, While I bend low where sorrow grows. This time I dared to ask her “why”, And if she came down from the sky. She shook her head with sorrowed grace, And she whispered as she touched my face: “You are the one who cannot wake From dreams your soul refused to break.” She kissed my cheek— I felt no heat. My heart forgot its normal beat. I tried to leave, to stand, to flee, But walls of mist encircled me. The table stayed, the chairs did too, The sky outside had lost its blue. She floated near, moon-cold and pale. With eyes like clouds and breath like hail. “She reassured me with an unfamiliar line” But now… I think I knew that sign. For though her words once brought me dread, They now feel soft inside my head. And maybe time had closed the door— The line she spoke was strange no more. What once had echoed like a plea, Now felt like a part of what made me. Perhaps this dream was never mine. But still, I knew that final line.