I rhyme to fill the vacancies in my head

silently scream till I painfully run out of breath

glacially stuck in my ways

aimlessly wandering harboring hate

fatally carrying all this weight

between the spaces lies pain

where one thousand spectres raise

memories of countless cherished days

now filled with dread,

mind made hell

clouds they pelt

with rain it hails

grounds embrace flame,

pain kissed steps

take me to the edge

tempest of temptation

promises abyssal absolution

so I close my eyes and envision,

another rhyme

to drown out my mind

to jot down on my paper heart

not a line—but a rhyme.

My home is a halo of light, surrounded by the night

A lonely pool under the moon, whose light fails to reach

Me. So I,

drown myself,

in a sea of my sins,

punctured by the sadness of the streetlight.

I think thoughts that think thoughts that think back—at me—then they trap me in my mind’s mansion. Sometimes they let me out from one room to another—like how people buy new shoes; my thoughts buy me new chains for each new room.

They all share the same wallpaper, the same floorboards, and the same carpets. There is not a single difference—except for the paintings in odd, familiar shapes that adorn the walls painted teal. Some unimaginable force has each and every single one of the paintings mounted impossibly hard, so hard that even if I had the want to tear them off—I never could—not that I had tried.

There are no windows to provide air, no chandeliers to provide light, and no fireplace to provide warmth. So, I curl up on the floor each and every single time I am forced into a new room, then arrange myself in a fetal position.

I try to sleep.

I do not sleep.

Hours blend into days that blend into months that blend into years that thread into the tapestry of time.

Only then, after an eternity—an eon—that I force myself to study the paintings.

There are—were—paintings that I had laid my eyes upon in the past. Think about faded, light colors, that are used to paint joyous sceneries, of soulful moments. Now, imagine one of such temperament, maybe one of young youth, playing an instrument of romance—perhaps a piano or a violin—amidst a sea of clouds up high.

Can you feel it? Have you felt it in the past? That feeling of lightness that fills your heart with unbridled, ephemeral fulfillment? All from the beauty of something so ethereal that makes you feel as luminous as those painted clouds and carries you to a place that could only be described as heaven on earth.

If you have, and haven’t lost that ability yet, then I envy you—for I have long since been hollowed of that.

For these paintings that my thoughts think back at me, are those of a blackened abyss which siphons what little I have left.

For all that I think of—for all that I try not to think of—I always end up thinking of you.

These paintings—they are in colors of your eyes, in form of your earthly beauty, and in shape of memories of you.

Their names—conjured of the words that left your lips.

So now that you went out of sight, out of orbit, in your voyage across the endless ocean of stars—these paintings are all that’s left.

I suppose they are the souvenirs you’ve left for my soul.