It's Still Life

Author’s Note – Before the Silence

This piece began as a liturgy—written not to be published, but to help me find the soul of the Colour called Veilwake, the first of the 27 unnamed Colours in this series. I often write these longform, stream-of-consciousness meditations before shaping the Six Sentence story. They show me what the Colour feels like—how it breathes, what it remembers, and what it wants from me.

This isn’t meant to be fast, or even “easy.” It’s meant to be held—read the way you’d walk through an old cathedral: slowly, quietly, letting the stone and candlelight speak for themselves.

You don’t need to know the whole myth. Just follow the thread. If it calls to something in you—linger. If not, let it pass like weather.

But if you do stay… thank you.
This is Veilwake—the silence before goodbye.

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Veilwake – The Silence Before Goodbye (the long-form liturgy)

I. The Holding

Veilwake is not the goodbye—
it’s the hand already pulling away
while your fingers
still pretend to hold on.

You’ll find it in the pause
between “I should go”
and the door clicking shut,

in the way a room cools
where a person was,

in the last sip of wine
left undrunk—
because finishing it
would make it over.

II. The Fraying

It smells like rain
on a coat left hanging too long,

like the ghost of perfume
on a pillowcase
you won’t change,

like a phone screen
darkening mid-message—
the words still unsent,
the thought still almost alive.

Veilwake is the breath
you take to speak
before you swallow it instead.

It’s the clock’s tick
after you realize
you’ve stopped counting.

III. The Ritual

You will perform it in the dark:
smoothing the dent
from their side of the bed,

rewinding their laugh in your head
until it wears thin,

tying knots in your ribs
to keep the emptiness
from caving in.

You’ll tell yourself
this is how it goes—

but the silence knows better.
The silence has already practiced
wearing your skin.

IV. The Leaving That Doesn’t Leave

Veilwake is not absence.
Absence is a clean wound.

This is the bruise—
the shape of a mouth
that almost kissed you,

the echo of a promise
that almost stayed,

the suitcase in the hall
that almost wasn’t packed.

It’s the last second
before the train moves,
when you could still scream stay—
but you don’t.

And the air between you
thickens like blood
clotting in the throat
of something tender.

V. Felreil’s Footnote

He finds it in train platforms at dawn,
in the hollows of chairs
still shaped like the departed,

in the way a voice cracks
on the word “fine.”

He doesn’t collect it.
He presses his ear
to the space between breaths,

and listens—
not for the grief,
but for the click
of the moment
before grief knew its name.

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If you haven’t read the brief Prologue (or Before) post, it be useful in understanding this series.

Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.