Verse 'n' Veil

The Bone Orchard lies at the edge of the world, 
Where the trees are ribs of a forgotten beast, 
Their spines twisted toward a sky 
That neither forgives nor remembers. 

The wind moves like an elegy, low and raw, 
Threading needles of frost through the hollow boughs, 
And stitching the earth with whispers— 
Names too faint for stone, too loud for silence. 

The ground is soft, a quilt of rot and ash, 
Where dreams have fallen like leaves, 
And love, once green, 
Has curled into the brittle amber of regret. 

I walk there often— 
Through halls of bone-white bark 
And shadows that shift like old ghosts, 
Their faces dim, 
Their voices the creak of branches in the wind. 

Here lies a promise I once made 
And could not keep— 
Its edges frayed, its center hollow. 
There, a laugh sealed in the amber of memory, 
Still golden, still warm, 
Though the throat that carried it is dust. 

The trees know—they always do. 
Their roots curl around our ruins, 
Drink deep of what we leave behind: 
The letters unsent, 
The hands unclasped, 
The words that died in the throat. 

And still, the Orchard grows. 
Its beauty is sharp, like frost on a window, 
Or the shimmer of ice before it cracks— 
A beauty that cuts, 
That bleeds you as it holds you. 

I hear the wind call me by name, 
Softly, as if testing the weight of it— 
And I wonder if, one day, 
My voice will join the chorus: 
A rustle of leaves, a sigh of soil, 
A faint, unending echo. 

For in this place, nothing is lost. 
Not truly. 
The dreams decay, but their bones remain, 
White as the moon, 
Bright as the edges of a storm.