Vanishing

Beneath the gloss,

something older pulses—

a hush mistaken for awe,

a loneliness dressed in rhythm.

The colors do not care.

They bloom like wounds made lovely,

a choreography of forgetting

spooled across artificial dawn.

You step inside—

not quite body, not quite thought—

drawn by the shimmer of elsewhere,

where nothing asks for memory,

only presence thin as breath on glass.

Here, time is mercifully broken.

No before, no after.

Just the now of glittering denial—

your hunger muted

by a feast of echoes.

They promised freedom,

and gave you detachment.

Promised connection,

and handed you mirrors.

So you move—

not forward, not back—

just deeper,

into a language with no weight,

into light without warmth.

You remember the ache

of skin against rain,

of silence shared without fear,

of knowing someone

without the need to perform.

But that was then.

Now, the world is all edge,

softened only by illusion.

Still, the lights pretend.

Still, they dance for you—

not to heal,

but to distract

from the absence humming beneath.

And you,

fragmented pilgrim of the unreal,

you stay—

because it’s beautiful,

and because the truth

has nowhere else to go.