There was a time when every star
had someone watching from the dark.
Every river knew its ancient name,
every fire knew where to leave its mark.

The heavens were never silent then.
There were bells beneath the moon.
The dead were counted. The seasons turned.
The night arrived precisely at noon.

Then something small was overlooked.
A thread. A hinge. A single flame.
The sort of thing that means nothing
until nothing is quite the same.

The sun still rose. The clocks still spoke.
The fields still waited for the rain.
But prayers began to disappear
like letters lost between the names.

Those below were told to carry on.
They did what they had always done.
They signed the books, they kept the lights,
they measured shadows from the sun.

Above them, silence gathered dust.
The great doors opened less and less.
No decree came. No warning rang.
No one announced the emptiness.

And so the little things grew large.
A crack became a line of fate.
A forgotten promise learned to breathe.
A door left open stayed that way.

The stars began to wander slightly.
The moon arrived a little late.
And somewhere in the machinery of heaven,
a tired hand released its weight.

No one saw the moment it happened.
There was no thunder in the sky.
The world simply found, one morning,
that no one was coming by.

And that is how a kingdom ends.
Not with fire. Not with a crown.
But with the ones who kept it running
quietly putting the old books down.