The red-starred sky

She learned too young to bear what leaves no stain,

A fortress built of scars no hand can touch,

She walked through crowds as ghosts slip through the rain,

Until his presence melts her mask as such.

A bruised lip pressed beneath shadowed eyes,

He calls her kukla in a voice grown coarse,

His calloused hands have come to recognize—

The wounds that linger in her silent remorse.

Two fractured souls, in secret threads entwined

He bears the shadows neither dares to face,

Yet in his arms, her fragile shape defined—

A vow no light nor logic could embrace.

Each night she drifts beneath that red-starred sky,

His breath her law, her silence his reply.