We built a mountain
out of dust
dry skin on old bones
and hollowed-out eyes
drinking from the crack in the glass.
The rivers ran backward,
spitting out promises
that tasted like iron.

Feet,
footprints carved into gravel,
burning with the weight of a thousand forgotten years—
we ran like shadows chasing the sun
but the light never reached us,
just slipped away
into the cracks of our teeth
and disappeared into the sky
that never looked down.

I saw the rain dance,
but it wasn’t real.
It was a mirage in the distance—
a waterfall that never hit the ground,
and I,
caught between the drop and the fall,
tried to hold onto it,
but everything slips when you hold it too tight.

They say souls
float like air—
but have you ever felt the weight of nothing?
The way it clings,
heavy like smoke that won’t rise?
I found one
stuck between the ribs of a city
too busy to care,
its whispers crushed in the concrete
by the weight of all the things we didn't say.
No one listened,
not even the wind.

I don’t remember how I got here,
but the silence
is too loud to ignore—
a buzzing hum that fills every space,
from my chest to the world outside.
A thousand eyes watch,
but none of them blink.

Maybe we were never meant to find what we’re looking for—
just pass through the doors,
always on the other side of the glass,
fogging it up with every breath,
reaching for something,
but never touching it.
Always running,
but never anywhere.

And in the end,
we’re just dust again
silent,
waiting to be swept away
by hands that forgot
how to hold.

The wind gnaws flesh from the bones of the moon,
spits marrow into the still water—
the pool does not move, the pool does not speak,
but something coils beneath.
Karma is a snake with its teeth in my throat.
I tell it, “Let go.”
It laughs. It does not.

No self, no center, no name.
The mind burns its own house down—
calls it wisdom, calls it freedom.
But if all things are empty, why am I still full of hunger?
If all things are weightless, why do I still sink?

The Great Way is effortless—
if you have no pulse.
The absence of love is not peace.
The absence of hate is not peace.
The absence of everything is not peace.
And yet, they tell me to lay myself down,
to let the tide scrape my body clean,
to make myself a ghost and call it enlightenment.

DO NOT THINK.
DO NOT SPEAK.
DO NOT EXIST.

(But the body still remembers itself. The body still bleeds.)

They say the world is illusion.
They say the self is illusion.
They say let go, let go, let go—
but I have seen the abyss open its mouth.
I have seen what it swallows.

So tell me, what if I refuse?
What if I choose to stay?
What if I carve my name into the silence
and dare it to erase me?

(Not you. Not you. Not you.)

But still—

I press my fingers to my throat,
and something like a pulse remains.

My star cracked— (spilled, bled, drowned, sank)—
under the dirt, under the bones, under the
weight of old mistakes // (how many deaths did it take?) //
the fox bit my ankle— SNAP— gone—
red tail swallowed in a white howl,
left only clawmarks in the marrow of winter,
& the serpent? hunger-curled, frost-twisted,
black tongue frozen mid-flick—
a heartbeat caged in stone.

(where does it go? where does it go? where does it go when the cold comes down?)

I never wrote this to make you feel good,
I never wrote this to make you feel bad,
However I did write with intention,
to make you feel !
To throw truth in your face,
Like it
Or not.

Look around you.
What do you see?
Is there anything in this life that will stay?
Look again.
What do you see?
Everything is temporary.
Everything you know,
everything you touch,
everything you love—
temporary.

A wife looks at her husband,
one day you will be gone.
A child looks at their mother,
one day you will be gone.
And it will hurt.
God, it will hurt.

Look around.
Do you see permanence?
Or do you see fragile moments,
slipping through your fingers
like sand you can’t hold onto?

Have you ever thought—
really thought—
about how it ends?
Everything,
everyone.
All of it,
gone.
And the love you feel now?
That love will turn to longing,
to aching,
to empty spaces where laughter used to live.
It’s the price we pay,
isn’t it?
For loving.
For living.

Nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is permanent.
Everything you smell,
everything you taste,
comes and goes.
Fleeting.
Fading.
This is the life we live.
A life of temporary joy
and inevitable loss.

And yet we pretend.
We carry on,
laughing,
loving,
living,
as if we’ve forgotten
that it all ends
too soon.

Have you ever looked at your dog
and thought about the day
they won’t be there to greet you?
Have you ever touched your father’s hand
and wondered how many times are left?
Have you ever heard your mother’s voice
and feared the silence that will follow
one day?
One day.
That day always comes.
And we are never ready.

They say,
a life worth living is the goal.
But does that make it hurt any less
when the ones you love
are ripped away,
leaving only memories
that ache in the quiet?

Look around you.
The car,
the job,
the house,
the clothes,
the people—
they will all disappear.
Whether before you,
with you,
or after you.
Truth is,
we are all just passing through,
filling time
with things that will crumble
and moments that will fade.

And yet, we ask—
why are we here?
What is this all for?
To love,
to hurt,
to leave,
to be left?
We cling to stories,
to hopes,
to beliefs that promise more.
But do they really help?
Or are they just another way
to delay the inevitable truth—
that nothing,
not even us,
will last?

Tell me about heaven.
Will it make this pain worth it?
Will it take the longing away?
Will it bring back the ones we lost?
Or is it just another story
we whisper to ourselves
when the silence gets too loud?

And what if there’s nothing?
What if one day,
it all just stops?
No more heartache.
No more missing.
No more pain.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven,
too?

Because this life,
this cruel, beautiful, fleeting life,
is full of too much loss,
too many goodbyes,
too many things
we should have held onto
just a little longer.

So, what do we do?
We love anyway.
Even though it will hurt.
We hold hands anyway.
Even though they will let go.
We laugh anyway.
Even though the echo will break us
one day.

Because nothing is guaranteed.
And no one knows
what comes next.
But right now—
right now,
we have this moment.

So tell me,
what did you do today
to truly hold onto it
before it was gone?
And what will you do tomorrow?
Will you remember these words ?
Or will they be temporary !
Lost with a click ?

Winds howl through my ears
empty voices, empty rules,
dust beneath my feet.

Stars burn, mountains fall,
yet still they beg me to care.
I just light my smoke.

Castles of the Forgotten Shore    
The wind shall shape the shifting sand,    
In hills and valleys softly carved,    
Children build, their castles grand,    
A kingdom made with tender hands,    
Where dreams are shaped by golden strands,    
But waves will take them back to land.    
  
The waves will take them back to land,    
As wind blows softly through the sand.    
The children’s dreams slip through their hands,    
While castles crumble, soft and grand.    
In silence, shadows fill the strands,    
And all returns to sea and land.    
  
The gulls take flight and leave the land,    
While sea and sky reclaim the sand.    
The castle walls now slip from hands,    
Forgotten, drifting through the strands,    
As ocean winds call out, "So grand,    
The shore, the tide, the endless land."    
  
The shore, the tide, the endless land,    
Where once the castle proudly stands,  
Now nothing remains but shifting sand,    
Where memories drift like hollow hands.    
The gulls are still, the sea, so grand,    
And all returns, once more to land.    
  
In silence, shadows fill the strands,    
While castles crumble, soft and grand.    
The children’s dreams slip through their hands,    
As wind blows softly through the sand.    
The waves will take them back to land,    
And all is swept away from land.    
  
The kingdom made with tender hands,    
Children build, their castles grand.    
In hills and valleys softly carved land,    
The wind shall shape the shifting sand,    
As waves will take them back to land    
And all returns to sea and land.    
  
  
Copyright ©️ Malcolm Gladwin    
January 2025    
"Castles of the Forgotten Shore"    
  
If you didn't get it the first time maybe read it again aloud , then you will find the key

Golden nectar flows,
sacred honey, vats of sun,
blessed in barrels deep.

Echoed praise dance halls
in quietness, we wait for grace,
mead poured like pure sunshine.

Brewed like prayer in cup,
ancient hands the humble craft,
joy steeped in amber rain.