grave poet


    These ancient words are all I, aching, say.


    I steal them from the dead of breaking day.


    Words that hung on lips—now battered, old stone.


    I cannot help remembering them, now my own.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    I used these words one autumn day out loud


    —a figure in the streets, broken and bowed—


    with a voice that wasn’t quite my own;


    the skeletons joined me with flutes of bone.


    You met my eyes and spoke in shadowed tones,


    a melody that matched my own and shone.


    We mingled with the poets long since gone,


    the sounds we stole an ancient kind of song.