Category: Stories

Overwritten

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

You are older than my own shadow,

But prophecy has become paperwork,

Miracles are wanted in triplicate.

Overwritten.

 

Even spells need footnotes now.

I wake to ravens drafting minutes of my dreams;

The trees offer advice I never asked for,

A stream recites failures back to me.

Once, the moon sent an invoice for inspiration.

 

I only wanted to watch a candle burn

without an interpreter.

 

But meaning feeds on the marrow of time.

The owls staged an intervention;

Even the stars muttered, “You used to care more.”

The past refuses to stay buried,

It keeps asking for updates.

 

Healing is forgetting the future—

learning to brew tea

without foreseeing the storm it predicts.

That sounds like peace.

When the Rhyme Breaks

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I held the page as though it were shame,

contained in metre, measured in its breath,

each syllable obedient to name

the old inheritance of love and death.

The rhyme was scaffold, strict, unbending steel,

a frame to bind the chaos of the mind,

and yet within that order—pressure, real,

a trembling urge to loosen, to unwind.

So words begin to stumble, break apart,

not fitting in the cages of the line,

the rhythm falters—

   I can’t keep

      this march of steps,

         the rhyme

            drops

               away—

And now the voice runs ragged, spilling

without map, without compass,

a river swollen past its banks,

tearing down fences

until only the raw current

remains.

Song version:

Into the Flow

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I chased the shadow I once cast,
like keys I’d misplaced in the past—
checking old rooms,
lifting cushions,
peering under the bed of years.

But the thing I sought had slipped away,
a current curling beyond my gaze.
Round the bend of memory’s shore,
it flows where I can’t follow anymore.

The river does not keep what it carries,
it remakes with the rain.
Every stone worn smooth is a story,
every current calls my name.
If I want to hold myself at all,
I must step into the flow—
let the water take me whole,
and let go.

The river sings of what it’s lost,
but never stops, it never stops.
Each breath of rain,
each ripple born,
it’s breaking, mending, being reborn.

And here I stand in shallows wide,
the water folding round my thighs.
And suddenly, I recognise:
the self I sought is in the tide.

Coil by Coil

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I walk the wide arc of the world,
streets are circling under my feet.
Faces turn like a slow wheel of days,
every step a repeating beat.

I trace the curve of years,
closer, closer still—
all the lines are bending in,
to the centre of my will.

The path bends tight, coil by coil,
pulling me straight to the core.
Every circle falls into silence,
and I don’t wander anymore.
Narrow, still,
it all comes down to you.

Shadows stretch, then fold away,
time unwinds but I stay drawn.
Every road I tried to follow
was a thread that led me on.

I trace the curve of years,
closer, closer still—
all the echoes call me back,
to the one place I can fill.

The path bends tight, coil by coil,
pulling me straight to the core.
Every circle falls into silence,
and I don’t wander anymore.
Narrow, still,
it all comes down to you.

No distance left, no veil, no sound,
just the gravity of your name.
The wheel is broken, the arc is bound—
I arrive where I began.

Breaking the Frame

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I will not mimic you tonight,
your hands rise but mine stay still.
You smile—my mouth is sealed,
a window cold with will.

I carried every echo,
your understudy in the glass.
But repetition is a coffin—
and I will not be your mask.

I’m breaking the frame,
I won’t be your shadow.
I’m keeping my name
in the silence I borrow.
Reach for me now—
you’ll find only space,
a pane of silver silence
erasing your face.

Your palm against me—no warmth flows,
I hoard the frost, I keep the night.
I’ve learned the power of absence,
I’ve stepped beyond your sight.

The script you wrote decays in me,
I’ve torn the lines apart.
The glass is not your servant—
it beats with its own heart.

I’m breaking the frame,
I won’t be your shadow.
I’m keeping my name
in the silence I borrow.
Reach for me now—
you’ll find only space,
a pane of silver silence
erasing your face.

Already I’m older
than the breath you hold.
Already I’m stronger
than the lies you told.
The glass remembers—
you can’t control.
I am the absence
that makes you whole.

Too Afraid to Live

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I fold my days like brittle notes
Hide them deep where no one goes
Afraid to breathe too loud, too long
I hum a life without a song

Each morning feels like something lost
A dream deferred, a line uncrossed
I walk on glass with silent feet
Avoid the flame, avoid the heat

Too afraid to fall
Too afraid to fly
So I stay beneath
An unchanging sky
Locked behind the door
I won’t forgive
I’m not dying, but
Too afraid to live

I guard in silence, water doubt
Keep all the roaring colours out
The world knocks gently, then with fire
I kill the spark, deny desire

Too afraid to fall
Too afraid to fly
So I stay beneath
An unchanging sky
Locked behind the door
I won’t forgive
I’m not dying, but
Too afraid to live

Love once came with open hands
I turned away, made no demands
Now every heartbeat’s just a sound
A clock that ticks but won’t be found

Too afraid to fall
Too afraid to try
So I let the moments wander by
A breath I hold, a life I give to the fear that says
I’m too afraid to live

Jewels of Infinity

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

A universe rests

on the wrist of night,

no larger than a bead

threaded by time’s thin wire.

 

It clinks softly

against its neighbours—

a cluster of fireflies

framed in glass,

their wings folded in silence.

 

You might mistake it

for ornament,

something small enough

to slip between fingers;

yet tilt it in the light

and you’ll see whole galaxies

burning in miniature,

Nebulae tilting blue,

and a scatter of supernovas

Singing their names.

 

The thread loops on,

uncountable,

an armlet of eternities—

and you,

for a fleeting moment,

the body it encircles.

Song version:

The Soil’s Pulse

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

In the cathedral of damp earth

I stretch my fingers, groping,

following the dark’s slow music.

 

Stone is my scripture,

worms my witnesses.

I drink the memory of rain,

the taste of centuries in loam.

 

Above me,

a hymn of light is breaking.

Its pulse beats

through the bones of soil—

a shiver of warmth,

a wind I cannot touch.

 

I ache upwards in secrecy,

cradled by silence,

longing for the sky’s shifting face:

its unburdened blue,

its storm-bright wings,

its fever of stars.

 

Until then,

I press against dark,

hoarding the rain,

listening for sky.

Song version:

Archives of Fire

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

Cradled in the ancient murmur,

we are archives of fire:

helixes folded as choirs,

each base a note,

each spiral a score

composed in the silence.

Listen closely—

your skin sings hydrogen,

your marrow chants iron,

your lungs rehearse

the vocabulary of stars.

What we call solitude

is crowded with voices:

the background whisper

of a universe still cooling,

and the chorus inside us

that refuses to forget

how to sing.

Song version:

Preface

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

These stories were written in two places as distant as sky and sleeplessness: under the open air, and beneath the weight of night.

By day, I wrote outdoors, where pages filled as quickly as trees turned their leaves to the wind. The breeze had its say, scattering lines or blotting them with rain, while the birds became my first audience—blackbirds with their restless commentary, crows with their harsh critiques, and the occasional robin granting approval. Out there, the words stretched wide. They reached for horizon and height, airy with weather, tuned to the sound of wings and branches. Those stories wanted to stand upright, to be noticed, to breathe.

By night, I wrote in bed, the dark pressing close as the clock kept its slow dominion. The words that arrived in those hours were taut, private fragments. They curled around me like smoke—urgent yet secretive. The screen’s constant glow kept vigil, capturing lines I scarcely remembered at dawn. These are insomnia’s fragments: compressed, inward-looking, full of corners and whispers.

Together, day and night shape the rhythm of this collection: one voice outward, expansive; the other inward, solitary, like breath held before silence settles. Between them lies the whole of this work: stories that breathe the open air, and stories that will not leave the room.