In this darkness,

I lost,

died, and died again.

All I loved marched into the void,

their shadows swallowed whole,

consumed by a hunger that spares nothing?the memory of light dimmed, forgotten, thinning.


Nothing is cold-- barren,

parched,

devouring the faint warmth a sick heart beats,

where the taste of tobacco lingers,

a phantom cloud curling in my lungs,

its weight dizzying, like the skies I once knew, slipping from view.


In this darkness, alone,

Silence presses against me like a scream,

a deafening,

frightening wound.

And still, I kissed Her.


I kissed Silence.


She held me with arms unyielding,

Her touch-- tender,

Searing,

long enough to leave me with dreams,

Fragile,

Fleeting


In this darkness, Something stirs--

a whisper,

a pulse,

a breath imagined beside me,

This Anything,

warm, alive,

like a river swollen behind its banks,

aching to flood the desert of my 'I got used to's

Where Thirst wakes me,

raw and burning,

its ache pushing my hands to reach,

to move,

to want,

to hope.


In this darkness,

alone,

I found myself,

my dreams--a vision of a future I remember wanting,

where Darkness cradled me,

And Silence loved me,

enough to want to love me

too



Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Sarapin, in the year 962 AF.