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Dearheart,

you are the shadow-specter painted upon these white-washed walls, the phantasm inked on maple scrolls grown dank with hope that aged amidst the dust, the ghost that haunts the stargazer lilies blooming in the depths of the mud. Belladonna crawls along the woodwork of weeping willows, their roots reaching for the sky as they strangle the morning glories that crumble in the pre-rain gloom. Skylarks lull crabapple trees to sleep and sing as the dawn arises from behind a veiled fog.

There is a balcony carved from rowan in the front yard, where we shall sit in the dying half-light of dusk and sip at gently-steaming jasmine, and I will ask you whether the loose-leaf souls that once littered these walls are kept in the pantry or beneath the floorboards, where the gutter-rats cannot reach them.

Neither, you'll say.

They are stowed away in the shoebox you keep hidden in your backyard, buried beneath dirt and the roots of thirsting dandelions. There the nightshade grows in shades of indigo thicker than burning starlight and the yew trees befriend your sorrow; cradle it with their brittle arms like baby Moses in his basket of reeds. Your smile is softer now, I'll say. I still remember those thin-pressed lips; how gardens would wither in their wake, how the fiercest of trees would shake and the leaves would fall from their arms though there was no wind. I remember your scowl, dearheart.

Your heart is older now, we'll say. And perhaps we do not know who we are anymore, but we know who we used to be, and as the silence settles we let that be enough.