A promise made,
Gentle words forgotten,
I remember you as you were:

Silent determination
In a softly reaching hand
That lifts me from loneliness—

Determination to be for me
What none were for you,
To be the strength in my belief
That people can be true.

Even after falling hard
And scarring this pale heart,
I long for you, I bleed for you
To remember who you are

Not the knives that time had wrought
But who you longed to be
In those quiet, lonely nights
When you secretly gazed at me.

I walk in shadows
To find deeper dark
In hopes one might reach out

To shape the arms
that held me before
And let me find the rest

That I once knew
When I was with you
Alone, our own broken peace.

For every year
That leaves me colder,
Though I fight to play my part,

The time I was sure of you
Burns, the only fire in my heart,

A light often trampled,
Dampened by fallen leaves,

But holding its own steady mark:

Warmth remembered more than felt,

Immortal through memory’s glass.