The streetlight flickers like a dying god

whispering Morse code to rats in the gutter.

Your name is a password no one remembers.

Even your shadow keeps walking without you.

In the alley where pigeons preach,

graffiti bleeds like broken commandments.

You light a cigarette with a match

you stole from a dream you forgot waking.

Time hiccups.

A train screams beneath your ribs—

metal wheels grinding ...

It was the kind of winter morning that wrapped the world in silence.

The air was still, crisp enough to bite at your nose, and the sky a pale, wintry gray. Trees stood bare, their limbs cloaked in frost like lace spun from the breath of January. A layer of snow blanketed the ground, soft and untouched, and every roof in the small mountain town of Pine Hollow carried its own crown of snow.

Icicle...