The city moves in whispers,
feet scuffing stone streets,
hands clutching invisible debts.
Smoke rises from chimneys,
curling like questions that will never be answered.
Windows stare blankly at the gray sky,
and in them, reflections of lives
that are always just beyond reach.
People pass,
faces drawn with the same tired lines,
eyes glazed with borrowed meaning.
They speak in tongues of manners and ritual,
smiling for currency that cannot be spent,
laughing at jokes older than memory,
ignoring the weight of silence
that drapes over shoulders
like a threadbare cloak.
In the cafés,
cups clink, voices collide,
and yet no one is here,
no one truly present.
Hands brush hands,
but warmth is a rumor,
an echo of the world as it was imagined,
not as it is.
Time bends for no one.
It folds and stretches like the thin paper of old books,
leaving words behind that crumble in touch,
memories that were never yours,
glances that dissolve before recognition.
Children laugh,
their joy a fragile balloon,
rising until the strings snap,
falling into puddles of cold reality.
The streets are lined with clocks
that tick without rhythm,
reminding that existence is only measurement,
that society counts in numbers
and forgets in hearts.
We move like insects on a mirror,
stepping over each other,
oblivious to the cracks beneath.
Faces wear masks,
some with subtle smiles,
others with grimace of struggle,
all hiding the hollowness,
the constant ache of unspoken despair.
Politeness is a veil,
compliments a debt,
and love…
love is a word sold at auction,
never touched, never owned.
Buildings rise tall,
their shadows swallowing streets,
casting everyone into smallness.
Yet we bow to their presence,
adore their glass and steel,
forgetting the soil beneath,
forgetting that roots are what hold us
even when we pretend to float.
The wind carries stories no one listens to.
Leaves scrape across cobblestones,
telling of forgotten footsteps,
of promises dissolved in rain.
Even the pigeons move with purpose,
pecking crumbs of human vanity,
while men and women rush past,
too busy to notice the poetry
of their own fleeting motions.
Mirrors do not lie;
they reveal the quiet despair
behind carefully arranged hair,
behind painted lips,
behind the laughter practiced like a skill.
Eyes are oceans of fatigue,
and yet they gaze outward
searching for meaning
in a world that cannot return it.
The rivers carry reflections of everything
we do not see,
currents dragging shadows of lives
we never live.
The bridges stand firm,
yet we tremble on them,
knowing the drop below is patient,
knowing the water will not forgive
and that no one notices the trembling
except the forgotten stones beneath our feet.
Voices rise and fall like tides,
debates and songs
wasted on ears that close before comprehension.
Art is made, sold, displayed,
then ignored as if it never existed.
And the heart beats in rhythm with indifference,
learning that warmth is rare,
compassion rarer,
and sincerity nearly extinct.
We worship progress,
adore the flickering glow of machines,
clutch screens like lifelines,
but the pulse within remains untouched,
hidden beneath layers of apathy and obligation.
We call it society,
but it is only a mirror
reflecting what we refuse to see in ourselves.
Night comes,
quiet as a thief,
stealing color from the sky,
draining the streets of movement,
leaving only the whispers
of lives unremarked,
of names forgotten before they were spoken.
The lamps flicker,
casting shadows like regrets
that follow every step,
every glance,
every silent wish.
We are alone together.
We touch shoulders,
we speak words,
we share fleeting glances,
but inside,
each of us carries a hollowed world,
and no one knows the weight of another's sky.
And yet, we persist.
Walking, talking, laughing, crying,
measuring our days in meaningless units,
pretending our hearts are whole.
We create gods, laws, art, love,
but everything is fragile,
a paper ship on the river,
soon torn, soon forgotten,
soon Zabytyi.
The snow falls silently,
covering footprints of the busy,
erasing evidence of existence,
and we continue,
murmuring in the spaces between breaths,
believing we are known,
believing we are remembered,
while the world waits, patient and indifferent,
for the next life to be lost,
for the next heart to be left unheld.
We are shadows worshipping shadows,
echoes speaking to echoes,
and perhaps that is enough.
Or perhaps it is all we deserve.