The Walk
I walk forlorn slow, deliberate, through a thinning fog that smells of something ending. The air is heavy with foreboding, like rain that never falls, like words that never leave the mouth. Each step feels negotiated, not taken. I have walked long enough against a wind that never rests. Even resolve has weight. Even patience fractures. And steel however tempered bends under pressure before it breaks. So if I pause here, it is not surrender. It is the sound of metal remembering it was once fire