Strangers to Stone

He sleeps beneath the bridge of burnt-out prayers,
A shiver stitched in threadbare, silent hours.
His breath curls round a dreamless paper cup,
While night exhales the city’s bitter dust.

I pass him like a ghost who never died,
My shadow flickers where his soul resides.
He’s rootless, yes—but I, I float in glass,
A frame without a picture, trapped in past.

His hands are maps of places torn and gone,
Mine are a list of names that don’t respond.
He counts the stars like debts he’ll never pay,
I count the days I’ve said I am okay.

His hunger’s sharp—a knife that knows his name,
But mine’s a feast of echoes wrapped in shame.
He’s lost to walls that won’t remember him,
I’m lost to faces speaking through their skin.

He lies on stone as if it’s always been,
I lie in beds that melt when I lean in.
The street forgets him slowly, day by day,
But I’m erased in crowds that look away.

He knows the cold like family, like fate,
And I know warmth that never resonates.
His home’s the sky, with nowhere left to fall,
My home’s a door that’s never been a wall.