Under A Dimmed Moon (collab with hiraeth)

See, you both collabed AGAIN, yay!! So happy to see this.

I will be honest if that's alright. Parts of this piece seem a bit too reliant on phrases upon my first read, if that makes sense? It feels unnatural in some parts and like a few lines could possibly be more concise. But then again, it's a totally different piece and "feel" from your other collaboration. It took me reading through it a second then third time to see the piece as more focused on the atmosphere and an almost intangible sorrow.

"The air had suddenly thinned;
to don the part of him, that
he so desperately tried to
keep under lock-and-key,
paralyzed him. He sewed his lips
shut and offered no words to her.

The air had suddenly thinned;
for she has escaped with him from
the bars she locked herself in.
Silence surrounded his haunted soul,
after he burnt his past in the fiery pit,
and spread the ashes in the silent forest."

- I kind of get how you were connecting the stanzas here, but they seem a bit awkward to me, and like more could be said with fewer words. Also, the change of tenses (present in beginning of poem then past then "for she has escaped with him") may have thrown me off but that's my own silly perception :)

Last two stanzas are gold, really solidified this feeling it gave me of two souls exposed, knowing they cannot stay, trying to burn their past and leave the ashes, yet there's a push-and-pull. I feel the struggle, and whether his breathing is hinting for her to move on from him, or from her past life, former self, she would not be where she is without his presence.

Also, two things I keep coming back to:

"she lights up a star"
- This gives me shivers in the sense that, is she tracing her roots here, using some sort of magic, commanding light?

and
"he whispers back with a new melody" / "his howling"

It's neat how you bring the magic aspect into this, and I can't help but think of the wolf, and how she may have heard his song and story, his agony, and she sought out his wisdom. She realizes, once he is silent, that SHE has been the one to bar herself and barricade herself from moving forward, from living despite fearing the demons will follow her and haunt here there, too.

Each re-read, I'm finding more mystique in it. It's fantasy, and I love the nods to nature and the way they escape to the forest, how there is more of a story with this one, and you set the atmosphere of these two souls in pain.

You both have fantastic minds, and I love when they work together to create gems!