Where the Shadows Keep You

The record spins, a needle tracing scars,

your name drifts out like smoke across the room;

I chase it down through headlights, fading cars,

a fleeting warmth that always ends in gloom.

You left your sweater hanging by the chair,

it smells like rain and something I can’t lose;

I fold it close, but shadows settle there,

a comfort wrapped in ache I didn’t choose.

And memory’s a ghost I can’t unwrite,

it glows like embers, flickers, then is gone;

I walk the line between the dark and light,

a verse half-sung, a promise half-undone.

So love becomes the dusk before the dawn:

both where I break, and where I still hold on.