In an old box beneath a layer of dust

Sleep the cities we never discovered.

Even lines, frozen time,

I ease the burden with a salt of words.

The ink has faded, the paper is thin,

My hand trembles again at the edge.

I build bridges that lead nowhere,

And in them our sorrow stands still.

There, in the names — only echo and ice,

Every paragraph leads to nothing.

There I’m more honest than in life or aloud,

There lives my restless, broken spirit.

Why these phrases, why all this nonsense?

The post of the soul won’t give me a ticket.

I seal the envelopes, yet I already know —

This is my golden prison.

These are letters I will never send,

In them I forgive and love again.

White birds with wounded wings,

We leave it all for “someday.”

Through broken handwriting, across the years,

There you are with me — forever there.

Let this ash drift across the table,

I keep them in the darkest corner.

Wrong address…

City abandoned…

My evening light

cut down in the past…

I burn them! I burn them!

But I keep writing again…

I won’t press “send” today.

The world is suffocating with too many words.

Sleep peacefully in your box…

Becoming quieter…

And becoming…

A shadow of shadows.