eventually this will all be a shot in the heart, a fading noise in the dark. I have wandered and wondered for years now but to no avail; the past weighs in as an avalanche and the only anthem I can recall holds no melody, no song. in dreams I am merely asleep, in life I only exist. there's a place where empty hearts go, they say, of a valley shrouded in shadows where ice flames flicker and nothing grows. I wish I could tell you that I was strong enough, immortal even, to avoid such a fate; yet in the soul of my soul we both know that there are some things from which one cannot escape.

the only love I know feels like this, thunderstorms, warm hands and piercing silence. of passing glances and wilting flowers. even silence is a noise, some will tell you, and they are right. there are scars in my core that bandages cannot heal, that time cannot take away. how quiet people become in the face of those they cannot save. how little our lives mean on the grander scale of things. with every inhale I imagine that the universe must be consuming me from within; perhaps one day I will finally be able to forget it all.

I wonder if you still remember me from time to time.

(A.H.Z)