I keep a clean altar beneath a weathered name,
Yet no second shadow enters its flame.
The scales know my weight, but misread my worth,
And send every compass away from my earth.
I have fed the crows with the last of my bread,
Still winter arranges a room for the dead.
Good seeds sleep beneath my tongue’s quiet rain,
While wild vines inherit the neighboring plain.
I polish the door that no footsteps seek,
And teach empty chairs how the lonely speak.
Somewhere, a key is rusting in an unseen hand,
Somewhere, a heart forgets the shape I command.
What ledger of stars keeps erasing my claim?
What wheel turns backward and calls it by name?
The dusk grows heavier, thread by thread,
A disheartened moon with its silver bled.
I ask the dark, though it answers in stone:
Why does the road keep returning me home?
If karma is water, why thirst at the well—
And who hid my companion inside this spell?