She Was a Flicker

She was a flicker in the dusk— a spark in the quiet collapse of sky, and I, foolish with hope, thought stars stayed lit just for me. She kissed me like time was dying— slow, desperate, infinite. Her lips wrote sonnets on mine, like the universe had just begun to understand poetry. But morning is cruel to dreamers. She whispered, “I belong to another.” And that’s how the gods laugh, isn’t it? Giving you gold and stealing it mid-glow. Now I walk like a man whose shadow left him too— who replays her eyes like cursed film reels, each glance a blade. She moved through my soul like music through bone— and I still sway to the rhythm of her absence. She isn’t mine. She was never mine. But oh, she made me feel like I had touched the divine— just once. Just long enough to break.