Veil of Friendship
Perhaps, we are all
but strangers behind veils spun
of laughter and trust—
ghosts who wear each other’s names
until silence calls us home.
Did you know my heart,
or only the echoes cast
by my borrowed smile?
A river flows between us,
but we mistook it for land.
Tell me, O fleeting moon,
when the dawn takes back the stars,
will my name remain?
Or am I but drifting mist,
a sigh lost to breathless seas?
I have worn faces,
borrowed from love and longing,
from joy and sorrow—
a traveler draped in moments,
never still, never my own.
I have left nothing—
only footprints on soft sand,
a song half-sung low,
scattered words in dying light,
a shadow folding inward.
The wind takes my breath,
and in the hush of dusk’s prayer,
I hear the old songs.
Who was I before this face?
Who will I be after dawn?
No name will follow,
no tether of old embraces,
no step retraces—
only the hush of still seas,
only the sky’s endless breath.
O sky, take my weight,
let me rise as falling leaves
dancing without name.
No more veils, no more voices—
only wind, only silence.
So I walk weightless,
a ripple upon the stream,
a leaf in the wind,
falling toward the unseen shore,
where all names fade into one.