In the quiet of my studio, I begin again,
Chisel in hand, marble before me,
Determined to bring you back to life,
To hold your face in my hands once more.
Every strike, every caress of stone,
A desperate act of memory,
A plea to capture your essence,
That now drifts like smoke through my mind.
I remember your laugh, your touch,
The way light played upon your features,
But the details blur, the edges soften,
like an echo of a dream half-remembered.
My hands falter, frustration wells,
For the eyes I carve are not quite right,
The lips, a stranger's, cold and distant,
Not the warmth I yearn to hold, to kiss.
The nose, the cheeks, the curve of your jaw,
All wrong, all wrong, all wrong!
And I cry out...
Not in anger, but in grief,
For the love that slips through my grasp, my heart.
Why can't I see it, hold it, mold it?
Why does my mind betray me now,
When I need it most, when I need you most?
I desperately cling to the chisel.
With each passing hour,
Your face in the stone grows vaguer.
I clasp the locket to conjure you,
the image of you, the feel of you.
My fingers tremble on the chisel,
Each stroke a painful search,
Each moment a reminder
That you are slipping away from me, like sand through fingers.
I close my eyes, trying to summon
The exact shape of your smile,
The soft curve of your lips,
But all that comes is a shadow, a ghost of what was.
The studio is filled with echoes,
The ghost of your laughter,
The phantom of your touch,
But not your face, never your face, slipping further away.
I remember the nights we spent,
Your head on my shoulder,
Your breath warm against my neck,
Those moments are fading too, dissolving into nothing.
I can't let go, can't admit defeat,
I must see you, feel you,
Even if its in this cold, unyielding stone,
Even if only for a fleeting moment I could gaze at your memory.
But with every strike,
I lose another piece of you,
Another fragment of the past,
Another shard of our love, flying off never to be whole again.
I lay the chisel down,
My hands trembling, eyes wet with tears,
Submitting to the rock before me.
Your features fade because memory fades, because the world is cruel.
I sit in the quiet,
The unfinished sculpture beside me,
A symbol of a love eternal,
And the inevitable decay of memory, of my failing heart.
I whisper your name into the silence,
Hoping it will bring you back,
But it drifts away, unanswered,
A testament to my longing, my loss, my love that will not die.
You are gone, and with you,
The details that made you,
The lines and curves of your face,
The essence that I can't capture, that slips through my hands.
Yet, in my heart, you remain,
A presence, a warmth,
A love that transcends
Even the cruel erosion of time, the fading of my mind.
I sit here, in the quiet,
The chisel resting, the stone silent,
Mourning the loss of you again,
And the fading of your memory, my heart shatters like marble.
I wanted to hold your face in my hands,
To feel the curves, the warmth, the life of you,
But all I have is this cold stone,
And the fragments of a love that time has torn apart.
The tears come, unbidden, unstoppable,
As I realize what I have lost,
Not just you, but the memory of you,
Eroding away until all that remains is love.
In the end, I am left with this:
A love that outlasts memory,
A grief that endures,
And a heart that will always hold you, even as you fade.
