The City That Vanished at Dawn

Beneath a violet, velvet sky,

Where neon angels learn to fly,

An electric city starts to gleam,

A thousand windows weave a dream.

The rain falls softly, silver-blue,

On streets where shadows wander through,

And purple light on pavement streams,

Like liquid stars from distant dreams.

The towers hum, the circuits sing,

While midnight wears a diamond ring,

And holographic faces glow,

Where only ghosts of people go.

We walk beneath the neon rain,

Through corridors of joy and pain,

While strangers pass with eyes of glass,

Like fleeting spirits drifting past.

The city breathes in violet fire,

Its endless towers climbing higher,

And every sign, each glowing door,

Promises what we've dreamed before.

We laugh, we love, we fear, we cry,

Beneath a manufactured sky,

Believing all we touch is real,

Believing every wound we feel.

Yet somewhere deep beneath the glow,

A quiet truth begins to show:

The city lives inside the mind,

A world of light that leaves no sign.

And every kiss, each whispered name,

Each burning heart, each flickering flame,

Becomes a ripple in the rain,

A dream that cannot long remain.

Then slowly, slowly, eastward streams

A pale gold light through broken dreams.

The purple towers lose their fire,

The neon stars begin to tire.

The rain grows still. The screens go black.

The phantom streets begin to crack.

The mighty city fades from sight,

Dissolving in the morning light.

And there we lie, so still, so small,

As dawn's first fingers touch the wall.

The electric world has slipped away,

Like mist surrendering to day.

Was it a world we wandered through?

A life we lived? A dream we knew?

Or just a fleeting fantasy,

A painted world of make-believe?

Perhaps the dawn reveals no more

Than what we knew the night before:

That all the worlds we build and roam

Are passing dreams we call our home.

And when the purple night returns,

And every neon tower burns,

We'll walk those streets, both you and I,

Beneath that artificial sky.

Until the morning breaks the spell,

And all the dreams we loved so well

Dissolve like raindrops, one by one,

Beneath the rising, waking sun.

And somewhere in the light between,

We wonder which world was the dream.