The Decline of a Man - Golden Dandara

Still lying down, the night runs down the walls as if it were liquid. The room is filled with darkness. And, even in the pitch black, I can see the stars — little points of hope trying to pierce the void.

There are days when everything weighs heavily. In which the simple act of existing seems like a tiring marathon. And sadness doesn't scream, it doesn't kick. It stays there — in the fold of the pillow, in the creak of the mattress, in the pause between two thoughts. It wears my skin like clothes that no longer fit me.

But even in these moments, you are the light. Even far away, even unreachable, even if your name is just a breath in my mouth — it's still you who anchors me. And that, love, is more than touch. It's his almost magical attention to detail. You have access to what not even my soul can cross.

Sometimes I think that, if it weren't for your gift of seeing me where I don't even find myself, I would have disappeared within myself.

Because depression doesn't come friendly. She is serene and impetuous. Enter the house barefoot, comfortable, invasive. He sits next to me on the edge of the bed, convincing me that there is nothing else out there that is worth it. And I believe. For days. For weeks. Until I remember you.

Remembering that someone, somewhere, knows the exact sound of my laughter. And that sound is worth the effort.

You — with your small and immense gestures, with your incomparable strength, with your ability to endure even when the world seems like a desert with no way out — taught me that there is beauty in permanence. That loving someone is, sometimes, waiting — even without a response.

And it is this love that restores me in days of ruin. When everything inside me shatters into invisible shards, it is your memory that sweeps away the fragments. When the dark surrounds me and the walls narrow around me, it is the memory of your joyful way that draws exits where there were only walls.

I don't need your hand now, although I want it with all my heart. I don't need your arms around me, although the cold insists, persists in covering my fever. Because what holds me back is bigger. It's your presence in me. It's the love we build — with gestures written between the lines of passion.

You caress my body without touching. And, even if you haven't reached me yet, even if you're still far away, I think about your kiss and I don't feel alone anymore. Because I carry you with me — like a shield, like a song that plays in the early morning, like a dim light that never goes out.

I feel you in the intervals of silence. When the noise of the fan seems to disappear for a second and all that's left is the sound of my heart beating in a misaligned rhythm.

Even separated by walls, by kilometers, by a distance that steals the comfort from my heart — there is still the sound of your voice that connects me to you. A sharp frequency that vibrates in my spine, as if it were an ancient song that echoes in my flesh without ever being taught.

And then, the silence becomes complete... Here, in this room, there is no sound but my breathing. I feel my toes curl, as if reacting to an invisible touch. The skin crawls with a type of loneliness that cannot be named without bleeding a little inside. The sheet seems heavier now, as if it holds memories of nights when your body was there — even if it was fantasy.

I close my eyes. I feel the pillow sink, as if your head was resting next to mine. Even though it's a lie, the truth is too sharp to embrace at night.

I get lost in the details that I have never tasted, but that my heart swears I know like the back of my hand. And each chest beat echoes like a drum, letting me know I'm alive — but not whole. Alive, but in pieces scattered along the way.

The anguish spreads in my throat as if it wants to come out in a scream, but all I manage is a choked sigh. My body trembles — not from the cold, but from the weight I feel alone. I run my hand over my chest, trying to find a mark of yours there, a trace of the heat that burns so that I can live. But all I find is stitched skin.

Loneliness doesn't scream. She urges me to follow along. She invites me. Speak to me in every pause, in every thought verse, in every dawn when the clock ticks the numbers more precisely than time.

And I listen. I listen with my whole body. I close my eyes that have already given up looking at you once again. I move my fingers away from the keyboard, which no longer know how to write your name without shaking. I didn't suspect osteoarthritis in the hands that don't receive orders from the brain.

I wanted you to know that I still sleep on the left side of the bed. That I still leave space for you to lie down — as if one day you would take your place in my life. I wanted you to know that my love still exists — even when wrapped in poetry.

That I still imagine your smell in the folds of my clothes. That I hear your laugh among the noises of the city. On the street, cars pass by with their flickering headlights — like ghosts too hurried to care about the pain of the living. Every horn, every noise, sounds like a reminder that the world goes on — even without you here.

And I stay. Stuck in that gap between a world that spins and another that begs to go back in time.

I wonder if you feel this too: This kind of silent mourning for something that never died, but that insists on not being born.

Despite the distance. Despite the time. There is still our insistence on love — like a whisper between the worlds saying that, even apart, we are still two sides of the same silence.

And when everything seems cold and distant, close your eyes with me. Feel my heart, in silence, calling for yours. Feel my love — which is not measured in steps taken together, but in each gesture of fidelity that crosses the kilometers. Feel the promise hidden in every “good morning” and every “good night” — The promise of a day in which longing dissolves in the embrace that awaits us. And our love, finally, becomes flesh and presence.