Afterglow

We swore the ashes meant the end

But every ember hides a friend

The stage still hums beneath my feet

Your ghost walks slow in every beat

You turn and all my reasons fade

The years collapse, the debts unpaid

I breathe your name, it stings like smoke

Still, part of me wants to provoke

Time cooled the flame but not the wire

It hums, it aches, it still conspires

In the afterglow, we burn too slow

Old sparks crawl where the shadows go

You say it's art, I say it's war

And we're the ruins worth fighting for

In the afterglow, I can't let go

Heat returns where the cold won't show

You touch my hand, the fuse ignites

And memory burns through endless nights

We talk like strangers dressed in fame

Pretending love forgot our name

But every word betrays the scene

You bleed through cracks I've kept so clean

The crowd erupts, but all I see

Is everything we used to be

A look, a laugh and oxygen

Floods the wound we sealed back then

Our ghosts still dance in mirrored rooms

Between applause and quiet tombs

In the afterglow, we burn too slow

Old sparks crawl where the shadows go

You say it's art, I say it's war

And we're the ruins worth fighting for

In the afterglow, I can't let go

Heat returns where the cold won't show

You touch my hand, the fuse ignites

And memory burns through endless nights

The fire doesn't roar, it hums

Between our breaths, it softly drums

We know the cost, we know the end

But still we reach, still we pretend

We're not the flame, we're not the flame,

We're not the flame, we're not the fight

We're just two ghosts that burn too bright

In the afterglow, we burn too slow

Our shadows spark where old wounds show

You say it's done; I say, "Not quite"

We're still the storm before the light

In the afterglow, we turn to smoke

The past consumes the words we spoke

You leave, I stay, the fire remains

Two souls still tangled in the flames