I see it there, a single flame
flickering weakly against the dark,
its light trembling, unsure
a desperate thing clinging to life.
Once it was steady,
brighter than the stars,
carrying dreams of warmth
through endless nights.

But now
now it is only a shadow of itself.
A lantern that grows older
with each passing day,
its glow retreating like the soul
of an aging man who knows
his time is running out.
His hands shake when he reaches for it,
his breath rattles like an old wooden door
caught in the wind.

I watch,
the air thick with unsaid words,
the silence pressing against me
like a weight I cannot lift.
Who will remember the light
when does it finally go?
Who will care when the flame
flickers its last sigh
and leaves the world in black?

I think of the ones who once carried it
their lives stitched with care,
with love that burned too bright,
too hot, too quickly,
until the flame became a ghost,
a shadow that lingers,
fading but never quite gone.
The faces of the old,
the ones who hold their hearts
in trembling hands,
who whispers of days long past
like forgotten songs
that no one remembers the words to anymore.

Their lanterns
they burn less and less each day,
until the light is so small
you wonder if it’s even worth calling light.
But still, they hold on,
grasping it with their weary, bony fingers,
as if they know
that without it,
they would be nothing.

And the children,
the ones who have never seen
what the lantern once was,
who’s only felt its absence
they don’t know the weight of it,
the way the light used to spill
into the corners of their lives,
filling the dark spaces with hope,
with certainty.
But that certainty is gone.
The lantern has become just an object,
a thing that burns out like an echo
that can’t be heard anymore.

In the silence, I wonder
does anyone care?
Does anyone know
how hard it is to stay alive
when the flame dies and leaves you cold,
when the warmth of the light
has drained from your bones
and you have nothing left
but the shadow of its memory?

I think of the orphans,
those who were never given the chance
to hold a lantern at all.
They’ve learned to walk in darkness,
to feel the cold in every step they take.
They’ve learned that hope is something
you build in your mind,
something you tell yourself
when the night is too long,
when the empty spaces are too wide,
and the lanterns you reach for
are nowhere to be found.

There are no hands to hold them,
no voices to call them home.
Only the cold flicker
of something that once burned bright,
and now
now it’s just a reminder
of what has been lost.

I sit here,
wondering if I’m next
if I will be the one
whose light slips away unnoticed,
whose flame sputters out
before anyone sees it die.
I feel it in my chest
the heaviness of something missing,
something that can never return.
I try to imagine a world
without the lanterns,
without the glow,
and the thought settles into my bones
like the chill of an endless winter.

There is nothing more fragile
than the light we rely on,
nothing more certain
than its inevitable end.
The lantern will go out.
That’s the way of things
the way of time,
the way of people.
We flicker,
we burn,
and we fade into the night.

And yet, we keep waiting.
We keep holding on,
as if by sheer force of will,
we can make it stay
but it never does.
All we have left
is the echo of its warmth,
the memory of the light
that once was.

And when it goes,
when the lantern dies,
we will be left in the cold
empty and waiting,
just shadows in the dark.

.    .    .