Embers in the Quiet Hours
"Frost at Dusk, Words Unsaid"
To speak plainly now—
disappointment settles in
like evening frost.
Your messages fall lightly,
yet cut clean through the quiet.
The one who inspired
now sends words that tremble,
awkward and thin—
I steady my breath and watch
how meaning slips away.
I question myself:
was the flame imagined, or
merely misplaced?
Intentions once luminous
dim into distant embers.
Your replies arrive
as if meant to scatter me,
to unmake warmth—
I bow to the truth of it,
cold but without bitterness.
So I let it fade,
this small ache that once reached out
toward your light.
Inspiration stands alone now,
no longer asking to be held.
"Sorry if I was inspired"
Sorry if I was inspired—
if the small tremor of your presence
turned my thoughts into sketch and song,
if a single moment with you
rang longer than I expected.
When your presence resonates,
the world grows strangely clearer—
shadows stretch,
colors gather themselves,
and even silence seems to hum.
I never meant for this spark
to trouble anyone,
least of all you;
yet it rose naturally,
as breath rises
from a cup of tea at dusk.
Forgive the way I followed
that brief warmth,
mistaking it for invitation,
or for a path meant to continue.
A foolishness, perhaps—
but even fools bow to beauty.
Now I let the evening settle.
Your face drifts like smoke
through the last unhurried thought;
I watch it fade
without reaching out.
What inspiration remains
I will keep quietly,
folded inside the sleeve
of an ordinary day—
a fire reduced to embers
that no longer seek to rise.
If love was ever there,
it stands at a respectful distance now,
offering no burden,
asking for nothing
but the right to have once burned.
And in this stillness,
I bow once more
to the briefness of all things—
to the way even longing
must learn how to leave gently,
like autumn light
slipping down a final wall.
Sometimes I feel
that all I wish for
is for you to visit once—
to step into the coffeeshop
where my latte cools in my hands,
and softly ask
for a flat white of your own.
To be honest,
this may seem impossible even to me.
I know you aren’t into such ideas—
you’d laugh it off,
dismiss it lightly,
or answer with that small trace
of sarcasm you use
when something touches too close
to the heart you hide.
Yet in my mind,
marred by loneliness
and softened by years of quiet longing,
I still wonder—
what if you visited that place?
What if you stepped through those old doors,
the ones polished by decades of passing hands,
as in decades-past old,
so old they glow
with the memory of time itself?
It would become a place of wonder,
a place remade simply
because you breathed its air.
Maybe this sounds strange,
but being an old soul
makes me carry thoughts like these—
thoughts that drift like incense smoke,
fragile and persistent,
unable to be scattered.
They turn into poems,
into sketches on worn notebooks,
into quiet dedications folded
between research notes,
hidden in essays,
masked by footnotes,
disguised as arguments
but written with a pulse
the world cannot see.
Your beauty, your charm,
your quiet gravity—
they resonate every time I enter this place.
Even as the years shift,
the wooden beams creak the same way,
the afternoon light falls
through the same dusty glass,
and somehow it feels
as though you had just been there—
a breath before me,
a ghost of warmth ahead.
So I sit,
letting the steam rise like prayer
from the surface of my cup,
and write another quiet verse
for someone who will never know
how deeply their shadow
moves across my inner landscape.
In the end,
I place these thoughts gently down—
as one sets aside
a fading blossom or a silk sleeve
kept only for the memory of touch.
Accepting its sweetness,
its ache,
its irretrievability.
Yet even in acceptance,
even in this final stillness,
I cannot help but wish
you might walk in once—
just once—
so the loneliness beside me
could finally learn
how to breathe.
"Embers in the Quiet Hours"
To be honest,
I feel disappointed—
especially when messages arrive,
awkward and clumsy,
from the one who once inspired me.
Did they dismiss the spark I carried?
Or did they simply forget
the weight of presence?
Sorry if I was inspired—
if the tremor of your presence
turned my thoughts into sketches and songs,
if a fleeting glance
or a whisper of your voice
rippled through the stillness
and made me something more than myself.
Coffee cools in my hands,
steam gone, rim touching my lips like memory.
The bass from the rave down the street
presses against the walls,
shakes the air in slow pulses,
a borrowed heartbeat
I cannot touch,
yet follow with my own quiet rhythm.
Inspire me, I want to say,
let my heart burn with your fire again,
for even embers remember the shape of flame.
Your presence once brought music—
a note that lingered after laughter,
more lasting than any gift,
more alive than friendliness
that drifts away like smoke.
I sip slowly, pretending warmth
fills more than the empty cup.
Inside, a hollow curls quietly,
folded into the foam,
hidden behind a smile
that no one sees,
that perhaps you never noticed.
When did your voice become a silent song?
When did your light leave its lessons in echoes?
I trace your memory over every beat of the music,
every tremor of neon and shadow,
and I imagine your hand brushing mine
as a secret, a note folded into an ordinary day.
Even your hesitation,
even the awkwardness of your words,
teaches me—
I have learned to aspire,
to continue writing, thinking, dreaming,
even when warmth fades,
even when love retreats
into shadow.
Against the cold machinery of the world,
you once lit the wick beneath a sky
that offered no other fire.
And though you are absent now,
the ember remains,
quiet, steady, untouchable—
a small rebellion against nothingness.
The night thickens,
lights flicker across darkened windows,
the rave becomes a distant memory,
and I let the quiet hold me—
the only space where longing
can breathe,
where love can exist
without being noticed,
without betraying itself.
The cup is empty,
the bass fades,
and I rise slowly,
folding the weight of longing behind my chest.
No confession, no plea,
only a quiet love
that no one will touch,
a farewell never named,
a pulse in the still hours
that I leave behind in every breath.
I bow, finally,
to the fleeting perfection of it all:
the brief flare of your inspiration,
the impossible warmth of presence,
the small fire I carry now alone—
a testament to the world
and to the heart that once burned.