[ WP ] Empty halls

I used to pretend that you'd float down from the sky, in the same way that the butterflies of my childhood spun color into the monochrome clouds. I know that you could have danced right alongside them- an angel wrapped in iridescent gauze- and I used to believe that butterflies could be caught, stored in lockets for those days the rain sheets down and the world drains of color. I thought they would last forever. And I thought that we could too, but then summer wilted to autumn and all things gold turned gray. Except for you, a flash of stardust against winter's dull escape. And if I could make the gold stay- that's what I was destined to do. So I collected all your feathers and made them into something new. A memory, and I locked them far away, I needed to keep them safe. Just in case. 
 
 And now those golden trinkets are rusting in a shoebox that's collecting dust underneath my bed. And those snapshots that trapped our memories outside of winter's reach grew just as many tangles as my dreamcatcher- the very one that drips the sky as I sleep. I could drift into my nightmares to the sound of your voice every night, but those videos cast your apparition into my head. I do n't want to remember a you that's cloaked in spectral white and blue. I miss your blushing pink cheeks, robin egg eyes, summer straw hair. Those videos do n't remind me of your smile, they erase it. 
 
 I used to see you refract sunlight around every corner, every bend. And I used to own a net so that I could catch your name. I'd chase it through every empty hall like a child following fireflies, but all I see now are the waltzing clouds of dust. Do you remember when we danced like them, sang like them, loved like them? 
 
 You never told me if angels can grow back their feathers. 
 
 I still have that box, just in case. 

