Cipher Poem by Bien Nathaniel Gerodias

Kept like a flame in a lantern,
we burn where the wind cannot see.
Our glow is steady but hidden,
a constellation unnamed,
bright enough for two,
yet swallowed by the night

Even rivers know how to split,
flowing together in secret valleys
We carve our path beneath the stone,
leaving only whispers on the surface.
a silence mistaken for absence.
though the current roars below

Locked doors are our cathedral,
where touch is a prayer we dare not voice.
Outside, our hands become strangers,
masks fastened by necessity,
while inside, every breath
is a hymn carved in shadow

Between mirrors and smoke,
we learn the art of erasure.
Your face beside mine is a forbidden portrait,
so, we fold it, press it into the book of silence,
a gallery of vanished hours
hung only in our memory

Even when the crowd gathers,
I look for you as if though fog.
Your laughter shines elsewhere,
yet I drink it quietly,
a secret feast in famine,
an echo I cannot answer.

Neither shame nor distance can sever
the thread we spin in the dark.
It glimmers, unseen but unbroken,
a bridge no storm can drown.
Though the world averts its gaze,
we remain--undeniable, unnamed