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O Violet Hour, not green but grieved— a chalice crowned with froth and belief. You bend space, you persuade time; you spill our secrets in staggered rhyme. The city is judge, the lattice the law. Teach me not how to die— teach me how to confess without awe.
The rain arrived first. It always does.
Thin stitches in a sky that never heals—
street sewn to glass, guilt sewn to deals.
I walked under it, collar high, name low.
The city wanted payment. It always will. I know.
The bar at Ninth and Mirror kept its mouth small.
White Horse neon breathing like a tired lung on the wall.
Inside: dim vows, violet gloom, a bruise that learned to glow.
I took the stool that remembers me by weight, not by face.
The bartender slid a glass—no words, only grace.
Violet. Froth. White crown.
A pulse in the rim, like it might drown.
Reflection swam and split: not Echo, not Roderick—
a third self, nearer, colder, arithmetic.
I lifted. Paused. The Hour began—
Baine, not green, but amethyst and ash;
ritual of the city poured slow as cash.
We do not sip; we sign. We do not toast; we plead.
The liquor reads us back, letter by need.
First sip cracked the night—
heat, then light; soothed, then bite.
Time bent slight; clocks lost sight.
Windows hummed; mirrors spoke;
shadows listened; rain awoke.
Confession is the price. Always is.
They named it Black because it carries a body.
Not numbers alone, not logs and IPs—
but blood in the raindrops, a murder in the breeze.
The lattice kept half, the mirrors kept more;
what leaked into puddles could open a war.
She entered like an answer to a question I hadn’t asked.
Awning Stranger; thin, fair, bruised by the past.
A compact mirror dangled; silver flashed; thumbprint scar.
Two stools away. No speech. Only the glass, the bar.
“Confession’s heavy for one throat,” she said,
voice sewn with velvet and a surgeon’s thread.
“The city split it: rain takes half; mirror the rest.
If you want it whole, you’ll pass its test.”
Her eyes—violet dilated into night.
Kind? No. Cruel? Not quite.
Cipher eyes. Code disguised.
I listened to the BPM under her breath,
that soft percussion that bargains with death.
We drank. Intoxicating Rhythm rose.
The Hour unfroze.
Drops halted mid-air, each a coin of light.
Every coin a face, every face a fight.
“Confess,” the city pressed—
not in words, but weight on the chest.
I offered scraps: a spared man at The Great Gate,
not mercy, just paperwork—the sloth of a man.
Teach me not how to die—teach me how to confess and prove.
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