The deeper you go, the quieter it gets. And not because there’s nothing left to hear—but because the places on this page don’t shout. They stare. They wait. Their stories sit beneath the surface, like bones beneath earth, like voices beneath breath. These poems are drawn from that second layer—the spaces that don’t offer fear right away, but rather presence. The kind that lingers in your skin long after you’ve left.
These are places I walked through with reverence. Places that felt less like ruins and more like memory, folded in stone and moss, too patient to haunt and too proud to fade. They are cathedrals of hush, stairwells that never end, cities with teeth and towers with regret. And they don’t ask you to believe. They only ask that you pay attention.
This second part of the collection is not an escalation, but a descent. Welcome back. The shadows are deeper here, but they’ve been expecting you.
