Loneliness enters like a vowel held too long— a mouth forming something almost human, almost sound. You let it settle in the hollow between shoulder & silence, let it turn you into the kind of echo that leaves no ruin. You were a child once, weren’t you? Someone touched your hair. Someone called your name & meant it. Now, the night unbuttons itself, lets you inside its dark coat. The wind hums a song no one wrote. Somewhere, a window closes. Somewhere, a door learns how to forget.