The room stopped listening
My voice did not
I took the light out of the doorway
I folded every wire down
The screens returned to ordinary
The silence settled on the ground
No hands were waiting in the darkness
No signal asked me to begin
I heard the building lose its breathing
Then something moved beneath my skin
Not loud enough to call an anthem
Not clean enough to call a prayer
Just one unfinished note still turning
because it found me standing there
I thought the song
belonged to the room
I thought the voice
would leave there too
But when the last machine went quiet
I heard what silence could not do
I am still singing
after the sound is gone
Still singing
without anything turned on
No light above me
No name across the wall
Only this small vibration
refusing not to call
I am still singing
even when no one knows
I used to measure every feeling
by how far the echo ran
I used to think a voice was real
when it returned from someone’s hands
But winter does not need a witness
The northern sky does not explain
And every frozen branch keeps holding
the memory of summer rain
So let the empty room stay empty
Let every red light lose its name
I do not need the world to answer
to know I made a sound remain
I thought the song
belonged to the room
I thought the voice
would leave there too
But when the last machine went quiet
I heard what silence could not do
I am still singing
after the sound is gone
Still singing
without anything turned on
No light above me
No name across the wall
Only this small vibration
refusing not to call
I am still singing
even when no one knows
Maybe this is all a voice becomes
not fame
not fire
not proof
A tremor kept inside the body
after the world has left the room
I do not sing
because they stayed
I sing because
I did
Let the cold come closer
Let the old lights dim
Let the silence take the edges
It cannot take what lives within
Let the doors close softly
Let the final screen go black
I am not asking for an echo
I am not giving this voice back
I am still singing
after the sound is gone
Still singing
when every wire has withdrawn
No crown above me
No symbol on the wall
Only my own vibration
rising through it all
I am still singing
and now I finally know
The song was never in the room
The room was in the song
Still singing
Still singing
The room stopped listening
I did not