Modern Romanticism

A nighttime sky
has been shelving
tearstained memories.
Sleepless stars
keep me visionless,
unwind me into
one discerned setting.

I keep pages near me,
as I sleep, in the day
where faintest echoes
point me in your way.

Your face, your lips
surrounds me in shadows,
while I lift you to the light
where lucid dreams
are never right.

What wills me
to keep coming back
to your phantom shell?

I await my own death,
laying within limitless hell,
deciding against certainty
that I can fight
this timeworn malady.

Candles, long hallways,
where I imagine you
to be in every word I speak,
sent down corridors
to come right back.

You are up in flame,
while I am on knees,
begging to be shamed
for my facelessness.