Within the layers of whispered parchment lie stories untold,
where histories have wept beneath the ink,
washed away yet never truly lost, lingering like specters.
Once, the sun bathed these tales in golden reverie,
illuminating truths held captive in clumsy embrace,
now mere shadows dance upon the ghosts of sentences.
I find myself tracing the faded words,
a pilgrim wandering through the silken corridors of erased truths,
each letter a touchstone, each phrase a forgotten sigh.