Waters wander, withheld from their appointed abyss. The firmament is smeared with counterfeit constellations. Love is ledgered like lucre, its measure mistaken for its meaning. Tomes totter upon neglected shelves, revered in name yet unread in truth. Birth is boxed in symmetrical prison; breath is chilled into sterilized frost. Serenity is simulated into unceasing cycle, a pallid parody of peace. Faith fumbles beneath ceilings of smoke, incense rising not to heaven but to wire-born idols. Poverty is pixelated into pleas pressed flat as parchment, their plight preserved yet powerless. Hope huddles in rusted recesses, beauty battling with the slow sabre of decay. Romance rots in embalmed effigies, preserved beyond passion's pulse. Desire is drained before it may deepen. Endeavour escalates into emptiness, ascent without arrival. Reflection refracts into falsehood, the visage shown not the visage known. Solutions stalk the shadows of uncalled-for ills; implements idle without invocation. Flames bid their final benediction in tongues only the abyss may read Bonds burn to blackened thread. Music is muted before its meaning may mature. Night drifts untethered. Pain guards the blossom as much as it wounds. Charts guide into chaos, their compass turned toward mirage. Trumpets of truth are trammelled into stillness. Vessels betray their vow to contain. Roads are paved with relics of ruin. Touch is withheld till thirst consumes. Eyes avert the appeal of need. Trees turn treacherous, forsaking the root. Monuments mutter in the mute tongue of stone. Clouds clutch their rain in cruel covenant. Heat hardens to stone; ardor ossifies. Frames gaze without grasp. Words wander away from the wound they might heal. The day's edge is a breath before being. Flesh is but the borrowed raiment of spirit. Decay hums her dirges over dormant steel. Time wearies of weighing itself. Nostalgia is sold in counterfeit stills. Light lures yet leaves, while truth stains the soul in sovereign seal. Beauty breaks blacktop with stubborn verdure. Books bear their burden past their beauty's bloom. Faces wave in silence to the shadows of history. Clouds rehearse their rains before release. Empty vaults are venerated. Words are swallowed to spare the storm. Walls wear the guise of might yet crumble beneath touch. Men meander, divorced from domain. Sands script and unscript within the same sigh. Desire devours without digesting. Missives voyage toward morrows unmanifest. Black pinions bind the burden of centuries. The air bruises beneath the march of machines. Patience abideth at the banks, awaiting the pilgrim's plunge. Waters withhold their benediction. The denied dead keep vigil. Light lingers though it hides. Flame strains before surrender. Growth is guarded from its necessary grind. The beach returns relics of plunder. Truth resists sealing, slipping the grasp. Faith freezes mid-foundation. Depth is proffered yet proves hollow. Small sounds are sentinels of unseen hope. Dreams sharpen their peril in shadow. Private tides trouble their keepers. Beauty blooms briefly in extinction's embrace. Wounds are witnessed yet untouched. Distance is maintained for the illusion of peace. Each breath is an invisible bond to the Infinite. Captivity coos in the cadence of comfort. Wood whispers of the wild whence it was wrenched. Stone sleeps beneath the river's patient scour. Sound returns reduced, the echo a ghost estranged from its origin.