Unmoored

We drifted—not by sudden rupture,
but as coastlines give themselves away:
grain by grain to a tireless tide,
our footings loosening underfoot,
the sure ground learning how to vanish.

Your touch, once a flame, withdrew
into shadows of neglect;
my reach closed only on air,
thinned and stretched with distance.
Each bid for affection left untended,
lanterns unlit on a darkening strand,
their glass gathering salt and silence.

Our hearts shrivelled,
aching in their hush—
the marrow of passion
thinning into dust,
while we mourned in secret
what neither could name aloud.

Now all that lingers
are the ghosts of words,
the memory of passion
that never reached its height—
a monument faltered
before it could be cut in stone.

And yet—when the last tide pulls me under,
when even the moon looks elsewhere—
my last thoughts will be owned by you,
as if some part of us
still drifts, unmoored,
beyond the ruins of what we lost.