Once she was soft.

He made her that way,

Melted her down, sculpted her

Into something beautiful.

Oh, but the hands of time are cruel,

Sparing no one in their quest.

They lit the match, burned him to Ash,

And blew his ashes into the void.

The days without him hardened her,

Turned her warmth into shards of ice.

The world split her open,

Fractured her like pavement,

each blow carving at the edges of her sanity.

But no blood seeped from the wounds—

she bled only shame,

only the salt of regret,

Choking on the bitter aftertaste

Of the words that failed to ever leave her lips.

The world was a thief,

hands unrelenting,

pillaging her beauty piece by piece.

They broke her down, pilfered through the mess,

Stealing the most beautiful parts of her,

until all that remained

was shadow and dust.

Yet, she believes.

She believes the universe

hides its wonders

in dimensions veiled from mortal sight,

places where sorrow cannot tread,

where love takes root,

And time is extinct.

She believes he is there,

slipping between the unseen folds of existence,

waiting for her in the sanctity of what comes next,

where their love will rebuild itself

From the ground up, without threat.

She walks this earth

as a ghost still tethered,

To the black hole of mortality,

a lonely soul on the brink of surrender.

She prays for the veil to lift,

for the hidden dimension to call her home.

And when she falls,

she imagines it will be flight,

and she will land—

whole again—

in the warmth of his open arms.