The poet was not unknown.
In his hometown, they called him [Sightless].
Not because he lacked sight—
but because everything he saw
was invisible to those without the skill.
To them, he wandered through an empty world.
To him, it overflowed with unspoken meaning.
---
Those with [Divine Vision] walked in a reality beneath the surface.
A place of color, motion, breath—
green and gold and blue and blood.
A living realm buried beneath the silence others called life.
But not all who saw… returned.
Some disappeared without trace.
Whispers told of shadow-creatures
that hunted only in the hidden world—
invisible stalkers of the gifted.
And those who did come back…
came back wrong.
Wary. Shaken.
Afraid of things no one else could see.
---
Sightless carried no blade.
His weapon was the word.
His armor: memory.
And in his youth,
his one true flaw was belief—
the fragile, dangerous belief
that love was waiting for him.
She had smiled once, somewhere in a hallway of light.
He memorized it like scripture.
She never knew.
She never had to.
She laughed,
but not for him.
Her joy bloomed elsewhere—
in another place, beside another name.
He never spoke.
Never reached.
Only watched.
To him,
seeing her was more beautiful than living.
And so, he lived like a shadow beside the real world,
until even the shadows faded.
---
He aged quietly.
Retreated from the noise of people and promises.
Walked roads with no end,
recording the world no one else could bear to remember.
A world he saw alone.
A world he carried in silence.
And though he never said it aloud,
something inside him—
something buried and unyielding—
had made a vow.
If the heavens chose to write pain into the stars—
he would find the ink.
And burn it.
---
But today,
he was no longer alone.
Someone stood at his doorstep.