The Unraveling Thread

Your name is a cipher I’ve memorized, a code etched in the marrow of my ribs, each syllable a pulse that won’t subside, a fever that rewires my every wish. I trace the map of your last breath, a cartographer of what you’ve left— a crumpled ticket, a thread from your dress, a shadow cast where your laugh was bereft. The clock ticks out your absence in Morse, a Morse that spells come back, come back, come back, but the hands keep spinning, a madman’s verse, while I unravel the seams of your track. I’ve learned the rhythm of your footsteps, the cadence of your coffee-stained lips, the way the light fractures through your hair, a prism I’ve studied till my eyes ache with it. You’re the equation I’ve solved and solved, a theorem that refuses to resolve, a mirror reflecting only my own face, a labyrinth with no exit, no escape. Yet still, I follow the thread you’ve spun, though it leads me deeper into the sun, though it burns my hands, though it’s undone, I’ll weave it into a shroud, a crown, a gun.