She stepped into the world like breath upon glass,
a shimmer on the edge of dawn.
The light seemed to follow her at first,
curious and uncertain,
as though remembering a promise it had once made.

No one saw her arrival.
No trumpets, no wonder,
only the hush before morning broke,
the stillness that comes when the air itself
is afraid to speak.
She walked barefoot through the mist,
and the earth did not know her name.

The streets rose to meet her in their grey indifference.
Windows wept with rain.
The city hummed its hollow songs,
a choir of engines and exhaustion.
She passed through it all like a forgotten prayer,
soft hands brushing against the sharp corners of men.

Her eyes held the colour of beginnings,
but even beginnings grow tired.
She learned quickly that gentleness
is a language few remember,
and that kindness, when offered too freely,
bleeds itself dry.

The air grew heavier upon her shoulders.
Something unseen began to loosen,
falling in whispers,
the way snow falls when no one is watching.
She did not notice at first,
only that her shadow grew fainter,
that her reflection in the river
no longer shone.

She gave warmth to cold hands
and found her own fingers numb.
She gave laughter to silence
and heard only echoes return.
In the markets and the alleyways,
her light thinned like fog under iron skies.
People brushed past her,
their faces blank,
their hearts sealed in frost.

At night she sat beneath the trembling lamps,
watching moths throw themselves into the glow.
She envied their certainty.
Once, she too had burned for something unseen,
but the fire now was memory,
a dim pulse beneath the ribs,
a language without words.

Her presence became a rumour of warmth.
The air would soften when she passed,
a brief sigh through the noise,
and then nothing.
Each morning she rose heavier,
as if gravity had discovered her secret.
The sky no longer called her name.

One evening, as rain stitched the world closed,
she paused beside the gutter.
The water carried something pale,
a thread perhaps,
or a piece of light that had lost its home.
She watched it drift away,
unreaching, ungrieving.
It was only then she understood
that what she was had already begun to fade.

She walked on slowly,
through streets that swallowed her quiet.
The city lights flickered,
and for a heartbeat
it seemed they bowed their heads.

When morning came she was gone.
Only the faintest hush remained,
a tremor in the air,
as though the world itself
had forgotten how to pray.