I have worn your absence like a second skin,
a saltweight memory that never dried.
When the tide recedes, it leaves your name
etched faintly in the sand of my heart,
and I kneel before it, afraid to breathe.

I was the child the sea forgot to keep,
washed into strangers' hands like driftwood.
But still, the waves whispered lullabies
that felt too familiar, too soft with knowing.
Perhaps even then you were the current beneath me.

Now you stand before me,
and the years tremble between us.
Two mirrors, both cracked by time,
both still reflecting the same sky.

What words could cross so wide a silence?
What touch could unmake the years apart?
Yet still, I find myself reaching
for the shape of your sorrow,
for the echo of your heartbeat in mine.

Penned by my hand on the 25th of Lupar, in the year 987 AF.