Words that echo in the corridoors
and passageways of an empty mind,
with no company from any-body, from any-thing.
Because no bodies, and no things, can replace what is missing.
Lonely, and looking for a place to be.

Lonely, in the most unsettling sense of the word.
The type of lonely that makes your bones feel cold
and the only thing that can warm you up
is a lightning bolt through your skeletal remains
but that requires you to feel something.
And you know you can't do that, you're too numb.
Too numb - because your mind is too empty.

It's like a game that you can't win,
you've always thought this, but you dare not admit it
because this will happen. You know your mind is vacant
and that once you think it, you will always think it
because words echo inside your head, and you can't forget it
once it's been said.

he tells me he is reaching
his breaking point
(and) he sighs,
(and) he looks away,
(and) i want to reach out to him
to touch his hand, shoulder,
knee

but i am afraid he will
shatter

His long fingers clenched into their palms
His dark eyes were black with intent
Every elongated pause was an intricate harmony
gracefully accompanying the words
that tumbled from his cracked lips
He heightened himself and leaned in earnestly
Feverish want spilling into his rich voice
revealing the fear that had bloomed in his ribcage over the years
Fear that snaked up his throat and caught there
restricting his temperament
Fear that rose from knowledge of failure

Failure indeed lurked sickeningly
In the frosty air
In the purple autumn shadows
In the smell of hot cement
In the satiny pearl petals of the dogwood his mother had planted

He was a single smooth stone in an endless riverbed
Shaped by
the restlessness that flooded him
the desire that washed over him
the nostalgia that swept around him

Frantic to break out of the flow that was accepted by the crowds
Desperate for the peace that surpasses understanding

And in that moment
his finite experience and crooked path
meant less to her than the last of the cigarette she proceeded to flick into the breeze
Outweighed by her faith in the lighthearted boy trapped inside this troubled man's body