Hell is empty and all the demons are here
Or so goes the story
From William Shakespeare

How can those demons on earth do they tread
In all their glory
Nestle inside my head

On that night
That rainy fateful night
With just one rope
And a chair
She left it all behind

Some would think her choice pathetic
Cowardly even
But she couldn't take it anymore
The whispering glares
The accusing fingers

She was only human
She'd made mistakes
And she'd carried that mistake around for 8 months
8 painful long months
Until it came early

That was what pushed her to the edge
The one thing she thought could make her happy
Gone, just like that
A still-born
That was that

No way to bring her baby back
Yes, the baby was a mistake
Yes, it was unplanned
But she'd promise to love it
Even if she was ******

She wanted the child to grow up in a loving-home
Something that she'd never known
A home where they'd be nurtured
Promises would be kept
But most of all love

Love would spread through the house and home
Keeping them safe
But that child was gone
And so was she
Gone, for all eternity

You walk through years
wearing the residue of once-voices.
The air shifts when they vanish.
Not loud. Just
less.

Some leave like sleep does
on the edge of dawn
almost,
almost,
then nothing.

The tangled threads of connection fray.
Unravel with no ceremony.

You forget the colour of their laughs.
Then the shape of their silence.
Finally, the weight of being known.

Loss is not one cut.
It is sediment.
Layered
a geologic record of every
“remember when?”

You grieve the collapse
of a constellation
only you could name.
It falls
quietly
into itself.
Star by star.
Touch by touch.
A spiralling black hole.

This is how the heart breaks now
not in halves,
but in echo,
each silence larger
than the last.

I am fresh, renewed
Washed clean by the warm spring rains
Rejuvenated

I'm broken.
I'm bruised.
I've been beaten.
How much longer?

I'm afraid.
I'm terrified.
I've been betrayed.
What did I do?

I'm hiding.
I'm so lonely.
I've been ignored.
Why can't you see me?

I'm sad.
I'm crying.
I've been hurt.
Where is my comfort?

I'm drowning.
I'm falling.
I've been pushed.
Who will save me?

I’m fighting.
I’m battling.
I’ve been deserted.
No one’s fighting for me?

I’m losing…
I’m slipping under…
Save me.
Please?

Sleep where shadows blend
Wraps weary souls
In velvet deep

Sleep is remedy
For a heart that is in pain
The ultimate cure

An eternal sleep
Is a final remedy
For the sleepless heart

Was it a mistake
Letting you in, just to see
Broken parts of me

I am entranced
No
I am enraptured

Intoxicated
Exhilarated
You have bewitched me

Your touch
Pools like melted wax
Dripping on my skin

I am trapped
Yes
I am captured

Captivated
Fascinated
You have beguiled me

With a love
Too good to be true
Lie to me another day

I am found
Yes
I am created

New
Fresh
You have restored me

I am a kind of Tantalus,
not cursed, only shaped
by some quiet architect
who knew desire as distance.

I speak in the dialect of longing,
show others the soft seams of the world,
the places where love seeps in.
They find it. They bloom.
And I vanish from the frame.

My hands are full of maps
to gardens I do not enter,
my voice a thread
leading them out of the dark
while I remain
woven into it.

I am the echo that guides,
never the name they remember.
A hunger mistaken for wisdom.
A shimmer that flickers
just past the edge of waking.

I speak in starlight,
threads of maybe tangled in my throat
Fate flickers like static
a signal I follow
with closed eyes

Each voice feels written,
then unwritten

I hold out my hands
as if the sky might answer,
as if someone might stay
long enough
to read the same stars

Tired of waiting
Every day a new sorry
You forgetting me