The Silence of Forgotten Poets.

 

Time had stopped.

It wasn't the comforting pause of a moment stretched for reflection. No, this was the terrifying stillness of existence being ripped from the grasp of time itself. And in that vacuum, locusts swarmed, mercilessly piercing the soul. Through the bottomless funnels they left behind, fragments of my youth surfaced—silly poems scrawled on napkins, the reckless arrogance of 

adolescence, all of it hungry for eternity.

But I have nothing to give her.

All that remains inside are stones and wood, the tears of centuries, and fingers dried from scribbling futile words. Unknown poets, their names lost to history, whisper through me. Their cigarette butts still smolder with desperation, the embers of lost passion flickering in the darkness.

Their belongings are piled up within me, stacked in the forgotten corners of my soul like relics no one bothers to claim. Who wants her? Nobody. She’s not soft love, nor violent pain. She is not the overwhelming scream nor the subtle happiness that once defined life. She is the residue of all those things—left behind, unwanted, and ignored.

But look closer.

Times have passed forever—times of tender embraces, of gut-wrenching cries, of fleeting joy. Those are gone, swept away like the echoes of a forgotten song. Now it’s assembly time. Time to pick up the broken pieces, to restore the shattered fragments of what once was.

I gather the remnants, these forgotten verses, the cigarette butts of poets whose names I’ll never know. With trembling hands, I try to piece them together, though I know it’s futile. Some things cannot be restored. Some things, once broken, stay broken.

Yet, I assemble. Not for eternity, but for the briefest moment of solace.

And in that moment, I feel the weight of centuries lift, ever so slightly.

But the weight, though lifted, never truly leaves.

I continue to assemble, to restore, though the task feels infinite, a futile gesture in a world that no longer remembers these forgotten souls. The locusts, relentless in their biting, remind me of the endless passage of time—or rather, its absence. For here, in this frozen moment, the concept of time itself has dissolved, leaving only fragments of emotion, shattered dreams, and a landscape of loss.

And yet, amid the ruin, something shifts. It’s subtle at first, a quiet stirring within the heaps of discarded memories and fractured verses. From the corners of my mind, where the belongings of unknown poets lie in disarray, a faint voice rises. It isn’t the grand oration of a celebrated figure, but the quiet, trembling words of someone who lived and loved in silence.

The voice grows stronger. It speaks of small moments—of the softness of morning light as it crept across an unwritten page, of the feeling of ink drying on fingertips, of the weight of a pen held like a sword against the void. It is a voice that knows the futility of creation, and yet, despite everything, persists.

I find myself drawn to it, to this ghostly whisper of determination. I gather its remnants—the forgotten words, the half-formed thoughts, the abandoned hopes—and hold them in my hands. They are fragile, like dried leaves, but in their frailty, there is something beautiful.

Perhaps the restoration isn’t about making things whole again. Perhaps it’s about accepting the fragments for what they are—broken, incomplete, but still meaningful.

The locusts, once so violent, begin to fade. Their presence no longer pierces, but instead hovers at the edge of my awareness, like a distant hum. Time, too, begins to stir, its frozen grip loosening as the pieces I hold begin to glow faintly with a warmth I hadn’t expected.

I realize now that I don’t need to restore everything. The poets, the voices, the pieces of myself—they don’t need to be reassembled into their original form. What matters is that they existed, that they left behind traces of their presence, however incomplete.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

As I release the fragments back into the darkness, I feel a lightness I hadn’t known before. The locusts dissolve into the ether, their purpose fulfilled. The stillness of time breaks, and the world begins to move again, slowly, softly.

But I remain, in this quiet place between moments, no longer trying to restore what was lost, but instead holding onto the beauty of what remains. And in that, I find peace.

The world begins to turn again, not with the violence of a clock ticking back to life, but with a gentle, almost imperceptible stirring. The fragments I had clutched so desperately slip through my fingers like grains of sand, scattering into the vast expanse of my memory.

I stand alone, watching as they drift away. And yet, I don’t feel loss—not the sharp, gut-wrenching kind I once feared. It’s more like watching the tide pull back, knowing it must return in some form, even if it will never be the same. What I thought was an endless task of assembly was instead an exercise in acceptance. The weight I had carried, that of unknown poets and discarded dreams, was not mine to bear. It had always belonged to time, to history, to the inevitable passing of everything.

And so I let it go.

There is stillness again, but this time it is different. It isn’t the oppressive stillness of frozen time, but a quiet, serene pause. A breath between one moment and the next. In that silence, I feel the presence of those who came before—the poets, the dreamers, the forgotten souls who once felt as I do now. They are not gone, not truly. Their words linger in the ether, their voices woven into the fabric of existence.

I understand now that they never needed to be restored. They lived, they created, and their remnants were never meant to be perfect. The cigarette butts, the dried ink, the half-finished verses—they were all pieces of a larger tapestry, one that was never meant to be complete. 

In the end, nothing ever is.

And maybe that’s the point. The beauty lies in the imperfection, in the fragments that remain, reminding us of what once was. It’s not about preserving everything perfectly, but about allowing those pieces to exist, however incomplete, as part of the ongoing flow of time.

As I stand in the soft glow of this realization, I sense the world around me shifting again. The darkness recedes, not entirely, but enough to let in a faint light. It’s not a blinding light of revelation, but a gentle, comforting glow—like the first light of dawn breaking over a distant horizon.

I turn to face it, no longer weighed down by the past, no longer burdened by the need to fix what cannot be fixed. The poets, the dreamers, the pieces of my own soul—they are with me still, but they no longer demand to be restored. They are simply part of the whole, just as I am. And in that realization, I find a quiet strength.

The time for assembly is over. Now, it is time to move forward—not in search of perfection, but with an understanding that the fragments we carry are enough. They are part of us, part of the world, and they are beautiful just as they are.

With a final glance back at the darkness, I take a step into the light. It is soft, warm, and full of the promise of new beginnings.