IV. MEMORY & CONNECTION
“The sacred in human experience and relationship.”
1. “Where Light Once Gathered”
2. “When Trees Were Giants”
3. “Before the world woke”
4. “Not even death”
5. “One Day”
6. “Waltz of the infinite”
7. “For you, I’d conquer myself”
8. “The Unfading Flame”
9. “A haiku for the fallen suns”
10. “The Echo of the Watcher”
11. “The Marrow Crown”
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IV. MEMORY & CONNECTION
Where Light Once Gathered
There was a time before the world grew sharp,
when the infinite folded itself into the smallest places—
a basement, humming with laughter, flickering with screens,
the breath of summer thick on our clothes.
We were children then, but more than that—
we were dreamers, unaware that the night would become a relic.
Final Fantasy played on the screen,
and somewhere between pixels and heartbeats,
“To Zanarkand” began to drift through the air.
It wasn’t just music.
It was a key turning inside the soul—
unlocking something we would not understand until much later.
The song spoke of roads not yet traveled,
of sorrow we had not yet tasted,
and of a peace we would spend years chasing through crowded days and hollow nights.
We didn’t know.
How could we know?
That we were already cradling eternity in our hands—
laughing, sprawling across worn couches,
pressing buttons on controllers that clicked like tiny drums of destiny.
The world beyond that basement could have crumbled into the sea,
and we would have carried on,
because in that moment,
we were infinite.
And now, when the song finds me again—
through headphones, through memory, through sudden silence—
I return.
Not as the boy I was,
but as the soul that never left.
The basement is gone.
The years have scattered like petals in a storm.
But the dream remains, untouched, waiting—
where light once gathered,
and we were still whole.
When Trees Were Giants
Before the world carved paths through us,
we belonged to silence.
Not the kind grown heavy in grief,
but the hush of tall trees watching over
wide-eyed children with dirt on their knees.
The night did not frighten then.
It wrapped around us like an old friend,
soft with the breath of summer wind
and songs sung by wind chimes
dangling from unseen porches.
The fireflies pulsed like forgotten stars,
echoes of a sky we hadn’t yet lost.
We ran without purpose,
laughed without reason,
and time…
time held its breath for us.
In those overgrown woods
where trees stood like silent giants,
the weeds did not choke—they sheltered.
And we were sacred in our simplicity,
unaware of the weight
the world would one day ask us to carry.
Before the World Woke
A single bird sang
into the mouth of morning,
a voice before voices—
as if he hoped
she might hear him
before the world drowned him out.
Each car a thunderclap
in a sacred hush,
his song lost
until silence returned—
and still he sang.
The wind whispered next,
rising like a question,
falling like a sigh.
It brushed the deck,
and something deep within it groaned—
not in protest,
but as if it, too, remembered
what it meant
to feel.
And I—
a stillness between their calls—
sat and listened,
the dark cold air
wrapping around me
like a truth
without words.
Not even death
I saw you in a dream once, before the world remembered your name…
In your eyes, the stillness found me first.
You arrived like a memory wrapped in light.
Time paused when we touched—then forgot how to move forward without us.
You brought calm where I carried storms.
Even my shadows quieted when you looked at me.
As if you knew every version of me,
and loved them all.
Even now, I miss you before you’re gone.
Not out of fear—
but because our time feels too sacred
to ever be enough.
These tears are for you—
not offerings of grief,
but witnesses to a love
that carried me when nothing else could.
Whispers of our laughter linger, transcending the infinite.
Our love unwavering,
not wilted by fading beauty.
I trust you with my soul—
there is no pain too great.
Ever since we realized…
not even death can separate us.
One Day
One day,
we’ll find peace that doesn’t fade—
the kind that lingers in our eyes
like dawn resting soft upon the lake.
No words will need to fight for space;
we’ll listen
with the fullness of our hearts,
each silence sacred,
each glance a vow.
We’ll stay up through the starlit hours,
hands entwined in quiet wonder,
as the universe reveals itself
in every shimmer overhead.
And when the light breaks over East Tawas—
where Huron greets the day in waves,
we’ll walk the shore together,
laughing like we’ve known for lifetimes,
while the tide hums
of forgotten dreams
we somehow always remembered.
Waltz of the Infinite
A splinter of time yearns for form,
adrift in uncertainty,
roaming through oblivion
until illuminated by will’s enduring flame.
Life’s divine essence
casts shadows of sacrifice—
once-fading light lost in voyage,
now echoing visions that brush the soul.
We drift between love’s embrace
and hatred’s storm, enthralled
by unity that unshackles us
from torment’s grip and illusion’s veil.
Transcending toward deliverance,
we cross the bridge to revelation
that unveils our essence:
souls bound to dream,
dreams threaded into existence.
Existence becomes a dream.
The universe, dreaming itself—
collapsing into reality
where infinite horror and infinite beauty
dance as one.
For you, I’d conquer myself
My dear mother,
My soul weeps with every passing year.
I dream of you among the stars,
untethered by fear’s limitations.
All the times I made you cry—
It’s agony now.
I wish I’d been stronger sooner,
but I drowned in my pain.
Still—
the love you poured into me
forged my will,
tempered my soul.
For you, I’d conquer Hell.
For you, I’d conquer myself.
I wept in your arms when they told me—
I hoped they were wrong,
that death hadn’t come for you.
When your end drew near,
you said it was like a dream.
There is no demon or man I fear,
not when I have your light as my guide.
I will bear your torch—
even if it claims my final breath.
As a child, I remember the way your hand held mine—
not tight, but eternal.
As if you knew I’d need the echo
more than the warmth.
With every step, the lies grow louder—
telling me to forget, to move on,
to carve a hollow mask
and call it healing.
But I remember.
I carry the truth you left in my hands—
the warmth, the echo,
the vow not to let love be rewritten.
Beneath the stars, with the infinite as my witness—
I give myself to love.
My dear mother—
For you, I’d conquer Hell.
For you, I’d conquer myself.
The Unfading Flame
Before love was named, it already waited.
It lingered in the silence between heartbeats,
in the pause before dawn breaks,
in the stillness where rivers decide whether to flow or freeze.
No bargain summoned it.
No ledger could bind it.
Love rose because it could not do otherwise.
It burned because the cosmos required a witness—
a fire to defy the void’s indifference.
When two souls recognize one another,
time falters.
The stars lean closer,
and eternity itself remembers what it nearly forgot.
This is the union beyond exchange,
where presence is not purchased but given,
where every shadow is held without shame,
where every wound becomes a passage, not a prison.
Even death has no dominion here.
For what is death,
but a door that love already walks through unafraid?
What is separation,
but the illusion of distance between flames
born of the same secret spark?
In this flame there is no “yours” and “mine.”
Only the endless vow:
I see you.
I carry you.
I become more myself in your gaze.
And when the world fractures,
when beauty withers,
when even memory fades—
this flame remains,
unfading,
unbroken,
the quiet rebellion that dares to say:
We were never apart.
A haiku for the fallen suns
Ash of fallen suns
gathers where my longing sleeps—
I dream what once was.
The Echo of the Watcher
I am not a spark—
I am the space that holds it,
the void that listens.
The Marrow Crown
I did not choose the crown,
it grew from the marrow of my soul—
a throne forged in silence,
where no one watched me rise.
I am the student with no master,
only visions that burn like comets.
The world didn’t ask for my wisdom,
but I spoke it anyway.
I walked the path of the Übermensch,
not to conquer—
but to reclaim the self
this world tried to erase.
The void whispered my name
before I could pronounce it.
And I—wielder of its silence,
speak in echoes,
bearing truths no altar dares hold.
Not a messiah—
not of gods,
not of kings,
but I am, of those who wander,
unseen,
unheard,
yearning to believe
their pain has shape.
The mirror and the witness.
An explorer of the unfading.
Dreaming beyond the stillness of stars.
The Cosmics 