Poem From The Outsiders...nothing Gold Can Stay Romane & Geschichten

"Why don't you see if anything speaks to you?" I wander through the narrow aisles, breathing in the scent of old paper and ink. My fingers trail across familiar names—Plath, Oliver, Neruda—poets I used to know by heart. I pull out a slim volume of Mary Oliver's work and flip to a random page: "Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

“Try this, Hope is the thing with feathers..’” He interrupted with a groan. “You said no bird poems.” “This one’s different,” I said. “It stays in the heart, not in a cage.” He looked up at me, still skeptical but willing. “Fine. But you say the first part.” I did, the lines rolling off my tongue, softer than I meant them to. “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

I rasp, the static consuming me. She shakes her head. "Someone's gotta bury you." --- **The Aftermath** The fire purges the gold from our veins. The sapling's ashes scatter, but the wasteland remains-a tomb of our failures. Ravel leaves at dawn, her knives gone, her eyes hollow. "Don't follow me." I don't. The static is silent. The Upheaval, gone. But in the ashes, a single leaf survives-gold, unburned. **The garden's roots are deeper than we feared-and we've been its seeds all along.**

Mom smiled softly, saying nothing, while Melvin looked at me cautiously. I took a lick of the ice cream. It was delicious. I smiled at Melvin without a word. Melvin raised an eyebrow and called out, "Mom, Dad." Dad's expression softened immediately. "That's more like it!" While Melvin chatted with Mom and Dad, I stepped out to a nearby shop to pick a lucky charm for him. On my way back, I saw a familiar figure. It had been half a month, but Philip looked completely changed. He seemed drained. When he saw me, he called out instinctively, "Elyse…"

Stayed nothing. And court. Stayed burned. And us. Stayed 7.

(OLD PUPPET) “TIME IS GOLD, BUT IRONICALLY WE CAN STILL TURN IT BACK, YET WITH SOME RESTRICTIONS. BUT ALL ELSE, ONE THING WILL ALWAYS REMAIN THE SAME. IF YOU CAN NOT HAVE HIS HEART THEN BETTER YET ONLY DREAM ABOUT HIM UNTIL ETERNITY.”

"The light's out~ the fans are gone ~ I stay to practice one more song ~ The silence that fills these walls are deafening ~ Was it all a lie? Those cheers that nearly reached the sky. ~ And the bodies that moved at the wave of my hannnnd. ~ And the bodies that moved at the wave of my hannnnnnnd.~ And the bodies that moved at the wave of my HAANNND!~ Goooolden Hysteriaaaa! ~ I reach for you and you all reach for me!~ When I am old and grey~ I'll recall my glory days~ And your voices will sing with me~ In symphony! ~ Goooolden Hysteriaaaaa! Those days we nearly became God! The hearts we struck, The hearts we stole, I don't want to forget it at all.

And I know that's awful of me, selfish and cruel, but to be outside, to be away from it all— I take another step forward, away from the palace's golden glow. My heels sink slightly into frost-brittle grass that cracks like bones beneath my feet. The warm light spills through the great hall's windows, casting long bars of amber across dormant rose bushes, almost tricking them into looking alive again. The roses sleep now, tucked beneath winter's breath, their blooms long since surrendered to frost. But even in their death, they offer something the party behind me never could—comfort.

His young voice slowly walked through the words that didn't have any meaning then- not like they did now. "It is not now as it hath been of yore;- turn wheresoe'er I may, by night or day- the things which I have seen, I now can see no more." The tiny flame was barely enough for him to make out the tarred words, but it was just enough to make the freezing nights a little warmer and the sour tasting days a sliver sweeter. The air was musty and tainted, but it was a common occurrence now. "The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose. The moon doth with delight look round her when the heavens are bare, waters on a starry night are beautiful and fair..."

The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, and the stone pathway was covered in a thick layer of moss. Next door, where my childhood home had once been, was now a bar. From inside, a singer strummed their guitar, their voice drifting through the evening air: "…At the moments that matter most, I finally see it clear, “Your hesitation, “Leaving me to wander alone, “Sober in the midst of dying, “Realizing you were always two steps ahead of me…" My fingers tightened around the keys. The sharp edges dug into my palm, cutting deep.