The river speaks in hushed tones,
its currents thick with secrets,
folding into themselves—
the weight of unspoken histories
dredged along the silt.

I do not step in.
The water remembers too much.
The city breathes metal and wire,
a maze built on absence,
corridors wound so tightly
that voices lose their way,
disappearing before they reach the ear that listens.

I do not linger.
Echoes have sharped edges.
Above, the sky bruises with evening,
a hush before the storm rattles loose
the bones of quiet streets.
Lightning fractures the dark,
too brief to hold, too sudden to name.

I do not follow.
Names are only borrowed,
and some things are better left untold.