black reel

they play in the shadows quietly  

memories unwind on fragile threads  

a reel of faces I once knew  

their voices are echoes barely there  

hands press mine—a stranger’s warmth  

smiles gifted like flowers in winter  

their stories loop but I am lost  

where am I within this forgetting  

once color burned bright in the reel  

now black and white is all that’s real  

they say my name, I do not answer  

my mind, a room of locked doors  

I reach for fragments in the dark  

time fading, soft like withered petals  

this is the cruelty of the earth  

to erase what our hearts hold closest