Beneath the fractured sky
A stage of mirrors reflects nothing
But its own brokenness
Figures move
Puppets with strings
Held by hands that are never seen
Their mouths open
But only smoke spills out
Laughter echoes
But it does not belong to anyone here

A wheel turns
Grinding on bones and whispers
The ground beneath it is slick with promises
All the things that never were
Spilled like ink on an ancient map
There is no direction
Only circles
Lines drawn in sand dissolve into themselves
An empire of sandcastles built for ghosts

From above
The sky cracks open
Not with thunder
But with a quiet hum
Like the buzzing of insects around rot
The light, dim and bleeding
Falls unevenly
Splitting faces into halves
That never quite meet
Eyes glazed like glass
Staring into the distance as if seeing something
That was never there

A hand raises
Pointing at the nothingness
Declaring it real
Behind the curtain, the machine clicks
Clicks
And clicks
Grinding gears that feed on silence
One by one, the bodies move
Each step a joke
Each breath a contradiction
Yet the audience claps
They clap with hollow hands
Their skin barely holding together

The trees outside the window
Whisper secrets to the wind
But no one listens
No one ever does
The stage keeps turning
The masks keep shifting
It’s all a game played by shadows
That have forgotten they cast no light
Yet still, they dance
Twirling beneath the void
Where the sun should be