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Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

     Strange Lights, Strange Sounds, and Would You Like a Coffee?

In hospital one encounters strange lights
Strange sounds, visions – What is this all about?
Radioisotopes floating around in one’s veins
Dizzies, buzzies, shortness of breath, coughs, sighs

Reality tilts on an axis that isn’t there
Illuminations flash by at unwarped speed
Grey slabs curiously marked maneuver awfully close
Why does machinery slide overhead?

And a kindly voice says, “It’s okay. You’re doing fine”
And then those most welcome words: “Would you like a coffee?”
With gratitude to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary & Thuringen
A silent maw,
carved into the velvet of spacetime,
drinks the universe
without sound, without shape—
just the slow, spiraled collapse
of everything once known.

Its edge—a burning halo
of fused copper, liquid bronze,
and ionized fire,
spins at the speed of forgetting,
blurring into a ring of sheer velocity—
a lens where reality folds in on itself.

Around it:
deep red streamlines,
maroon currents of orphaned light,
taper and twist like oil on black water—
gravity made visible.

In the distance, galaxies drift—
fractured spirals in periwinkle dust,
nebulae bruised in plum and violet,
their tendrils stretched thin
by the pull of this ancient siphon.

It does not speak.
But it rearranges everything—
light becomes arc,
time becomes thread,
motion becomes stillness.


The accretion disk—a
maelstrom of starbone and ash,
where photons skim the surface
but never escape,
trapped in orbit,
a crown of failure and flame.

Beyond the pull,
light teeters, bends, breaks—
an aurora of shattered timelines
wrapped in lapis smoke,
flickering in rhythm
to a silence we will never unhear.

Each orbit marks a memory—
not ours,
but the universe’s—
stitched into the architecture of collapse.

There is no edge,
no true surface,
only the illusion of descent
into perfect black—
not emptiness,
but the compression of everything.

We are bystanders.
Frozen,
watching entropy dress itself
in colors we’ve never seen before.
Life's two words-
'acceptance' and' rejection'
which to choose for people
is difficult- hence the frustration
Affection is a fickle thing.
It morphs and changes interminably,
Wreaking havoc in its wake.
Havoc. Heartbreak. Hurt.

I put up walls to protect myself,
Because I’m scared by the change.
Humourless. Haughty. Hidden.
Perhaps you’ve been the same?

But behind the walls, I’ve been dying,
Losing parts of myself.
Haunted. Hollow. Hurting.
Getting so tired of trying.

Then I met him.

He came as a hurricane.
Saw through my darkness and reminded me of the light,
“arise fair sun”.
He may not know, but he’s breathed life back to me,
And given me reason to hope anew.
Hope. Happiness. Him.

Affection is a fickle thing
But whatever trials may come in future,
Mine seems steadfast.
Today another part of me found weeping
Froze rigid by a fragile touch
Sat beneath a sobbing willow
And didn't ask for much
But to languish in your steady shadows
To huddle where you hide
And when I sigh, it's hope surmising
That you are by my side
I'm content
to remain local
I don't aim
to be global

that reach I'll leave
to other people
in ease I'll rest
without stress or struggle
I was born
with questions in my mouth.
Why do wolves howl?
What do bees dream?
Will I ever be held
the way that the ocean's depths
hold secrets?
*
I pressed my hands
into the cool dirt of every mystery,
removed them to find earth under my nails,
ink on my palms,
and a smile I still cannot explain.

They tried to tell me:
not everything needs to be known.
But how could I keep from exploring
when every whisper of the wind,
every caw of the crows,
every daisy's petal,
tells me there is more.

They tried to tell me:
Pandora's jar is just Eden's apple
wearing a new name -
blooming only sorrow,
but can we really know the light
without the dark?

Hope was the last thing breathing.
She was caught in the looking glass,
unable to speak,
and I thought her reflection
looked an awful lot
like me.
A question that’s been cutting through me lately—
“What changed you?”

What changed me?
I’ve walked through hell
just to keep breathing
for people who never once
looked back to see if I made it.

I gave everything
to feel like something,
only to realize
I mean nothing.

And still—
they ask me why I’ve changed.

What changed me
was being let down
by every soul I trusted.
Being the extra body in the room,
never the reason someone stayed.

Invisible.
Unheard.
Unwanted.

My words float in silence.
My actions vanish in plain sight.
And yet, they ask—
“What changed you?”

The nights did.
The ones I spent choking on tears
with no one to come home to.
No arms. No voice.
No one wondering if I made it through.

What changed me
was learning that pain doesn’t echo
when no one cares to hear it.

That numbness comes
when you scream silently
for so long,
you forget
what sound feels like.

They ask me—
“When did you change?”

I changed the day
hope became something others
took from me—
like I didn’t deserve it.
I changed
when people rested peacefully
while I wept
over promises that never meant to stay.

Or maybe—
maybe I changed
when I realized
my leaving
wouldn’t shake anyone’s world
but mine.
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