The Voice That Wore Your Face

Isaac, can you hear me through the iron and the cold? I kept one light alive for you. Come finish what we started. Come make us whole. Your face moves softly in the static, your hands are clean, your eyes are kind, but every hall is full of bodies, and something speaks behind your smile. I crossed the dark to reach a promise, I fed my guilt to every door, but love would never ask me, kneeling, to wake the thing that wants us all. You left me waiting in the silence. You let the final signal die. Bring back the shape that binds the broken. Do this for me. Do not ask why. Make us whole - No, you wear her voice like wire. Make us whole - You turn my grief into a fire. One step closer, one truth torn: love cannot live where chains are born. Nicole, I loved you. That is why I have to let the dead stay gone. Remember glass between our fingers, the little rooms, the plans we made? I am the answer to your sorrow. I am the debt you never paid. You came this far because you need me. You know the living leave and lie. Give me the Marker. End the distance. No more goodbye. No more goodbye. I know the message I kept buried, the final words I would not see. You were already past my reaching; the ghost was only feeding me. So take the hope you shaped to haunt me, take every kiss you made a key. Her memory is not your doorway. Her last breath does not belong to me. Then look at me. You are not her. Say my name. I know your hunger. Without me, you are still alone. Alone is not the same as owned. Red light, dead air, the signal bends. There is no loss if nothing ends. There is no love without release. I choose the wound. I choose the peace. Make us whole - I will not build your heaven. Make us whole - I break the hold you gave her. One voice fades, one heart remains, not free of grief, but free of chains. Nicole, I loved you. Now I know: to keep your soul, I let you go. Isaac... Goodbye, Nicole. Make us - No. The silence closes. The dead are gone.