grave poet

  These ancient words are all I, aching, say.

  I steal them from the dead of breaking day.

  Words that hung on lips—now battered, old stone.

  I cannot help remembering them, now my own.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I used these words one autumn day out loud

  —a figure in the streets, broken and bowed—

  with a voice that wasn’t quite my own;

  the skeletons joined me with flutes of bone.

  You met my eyes and spoke in shadowed tones,

  a melody that matched my own and shone.

  We mingled with the poets long since gone,

  the sounds we stole an ancient kind of song.