The bellman's toll does not reach me here,
yet the silence is its own iron throat.
It is not pride that keeps the door shut,
but the knowledge of what was lost
in the quiet moment when the world
turned its face away from us.

I count the chimes in my own way,
not in candles or metal, but in the pause
before I speak your name
to a room that has forgotten the sound.
I do not wake to a restless draft;
I wake to the stillness of a truth
that we both must carry now.

Look at the time, yes.
See how it moves without mercy.
It does not carry us back,
not because we chose to let it end,
but because the path we walked
has simply reached its edge.

The ink is dry, as you said.
But the page is heavy with the salt
of a grief that has no home.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 20th of Ivolnos, in the year 17 AC.