#gaoqingchen

He writes with hands that barely dare to shake,

Each stroke a secret only shadows take.

The candlelight trembles against his skin,

Reflecting fears he cannot keep within.

His quill moves soft, like fingers on a throat,

Carving in ink what silence cannot quote.

His lips press tight, the red drained pale,

A ghost in flesh, a man who fears to fail.

I’ve seen his hands strike glass till they bled

I felt his breath in plea just as waters fed.

The tank still waits… a mirror-turned-grave,

A quiet tyrant dressed in liquid wave.

It taught him terror, taught his lungs to scream,

Till his breath fractured, words are not what they seem.

I’ve watched his nails claw glass in voiceless cries,

Watched bubbles choke the prayers behind his eyes.

Yet he still writes, for what can’t he say

He’s silence, he’s silent, his eyes told me “stay”

Each mark a blade, each rest a broken sigh,

A score not meant to live, but meant to die.

He knows this piece will damn him here,

Yet wrote and wrote, he’s done with fear.

This is no sonata the Master can claim,

But Veil’s last requiem, “Damn me. Damn your fame.”

The key lies near, sliver, pale and thin,

A single prayer with iron coiled within.

I glance at him…just once…and all is said,

A thousand vows strung, a future bled.

His eyes demand, though lips don’t part,

Two dull and quiet knives that pierced my heart.

No plea for life, no tear, no breath,

Just a one sided smile, and the beauty of death.

I take the key. The hush does not protest,

For silence knows mercy lies in this theft.

Then came his gaze, amidst my crime,

No fear. No shame. “You got me this time”

“When strings ignite, when water takes my soul,

Remember this: you’re the final role.”

I turn back and clutch this promise of sin,

For I cannot lose what I cannot win.

The stage is a temple of hollow delight,

Where shadows bow low to the tyranny of light.

The bow in my hand hums quiet deceit,

A whisper of vows. No lips may repeat.

The strings are obedient, silent, and bound,

They bleed when commanded, but dare make no sound.

I breathe with the rhythm, I bend to the call,

The hymn of Master eclipsing us all.

The hall wears its silence like velvet and stone,

Yet under its splendor, the marrow is bone.

Each role is a mask in this orchestrate game,

Where names are devoured, and faces the same.

One writes in the silence, though silence will choke,

His hands spill the tones that none dare invoke.

One plays as the dagger, the voice of the thread,

A song for the living, composed by the dead.

And I.. am the keeper of murmurs and strings,

The echo of dirges the orchestra sings.

This stage is a vessel; its bowels conceal,

A truth that no prayer nor plea may unseal.

So hush for the prelude, breathe soft for the rite,

The requiem waits in the folds of the night.

He doesn’t move, no, not another twitch.

The veiled has fallen in void-black pitch.

The hall retracts into its throat,

A gutted beast that swallows every note.

The chandeliers are bruised like silence hung,

And silence loads its gun right to my lungs.

I cross the stage, i close the curtains,

No more answers, and no more questions.

No eye shall leer, no tyrant’s lash remain.

The strings shall be, shall cut, shall stain.

This one is for just me…and you.

This funeral song is written for two.

I play.

Until the strings ignite.

Till shadows weep in molten white.

Each note, a plea..sing forgiveness, why?

Each cut, a pleasing..single cry.

And when the song dissolves to ash,

I snap the bow…a blade of jagged gash.

Its splinters bloom like wood in flame,

A crown of ruin christened in his name.

I do not speak.. What syllable could mend?

With the strings to my heart what’s left to bend?

Instead, I run.. a requiem of tread,

The hall shakes as I wake the dead.

The cage is there… The crystal of doom,

A door that locks the mouth of any room.

I drive the bow into my beating heart,

A scarlet echo floods this glass-cased art.

My knees collapse. My ribs crack in soundless harm,

My blood, your glass, a river braided into calm.

And as I fall, I clutch the frozen pane,

To write my vow in silent streaks of pain.

My blood reached your hands.

I chased you, no demands.

For you to understand.

This was indeed our last grand.

…………………………………………

Blood, they say, is thicker than the tide,

A binding force no storm can divide.

But here beneath this fractured glass,

Where death and scarlet intertwine and pass,

Blood bleeds into water, pure and cold,

And all the old oaths lose their hold.

No bloodline guards where tides have turned

In this one flood, all vows are burned.

A veil of lament so beautifully designed.

Two pairs of empty eyes, two loved, denied.

THE END