the beauty & the loom.

i dreamed you were sitting at a loom.

i entered the giant, barren room but your focus would not be broken.

i walked among you. 

the two of you. 

dancing in the middle of this giant space with barely enough light to make out faces,

but yours i saw. 

shining like the moon off of freshly fallen snow.

god, you were beautiful.

& your hands moved with the grace of a child but the skill of an elderly worker.

your eyes never left the weave,

& your lungs moved in a rhythm with the shuttle.

the silence was deafening.

but noise would have only shattered the glass that was the air.

you were working with bright, new colors.

the only thing that seemed to move outside the atmosphere of the room.

i glanced down at my hands.

they were old & aged,

hard & scarred from time i apparently didn't know had passed.

you never shuttered.

never flinched at my steps or wavered at my whisper.

i stood close for some time.

watching. 

taking you in.

a pile of rags in the corner of the room caught my eye.

i moved to them & shuffled through & through.

old, faded fabrics.

eaten away by moth & worm, left to be dressed with dust & mite.

i picked one up & a sudden chill forced it around my shoulders.

it smelled dead, dry, forgotten, familiar.

in the corner i stood.

warm & shrouded by the shadows.

i closed my eyes only for a moment to burn a picture in my mind

& when i opened them, you were gone.

the loom sat motionless.

empty except for the webs of spiders that had appeared almost instantly

but somehow held the signs of years.

i blinked.

the room remained.

i sank to the floor & bowed my tired head.

i closed my eyes to find the image i had stolen before all had fled.

there.

i smiled

& i fell asleep to breath the end.

these lips shall not speak.

these eyes shall not see.

in my mind is where waking will be.

but god, you were beautiful.