I fill the void with hunger,
I fill the void with getting lost with people by my side who’s faces i recognize
but who’s souls i do not know.

i fill the void with you.
i fill the void with you because even though i know that we do not fit together like the perfect puzzle pieces that i wish we could be
at least
i’m not
alone.

i fill the void with consumption
i fill the void with cigarettes
i fill the void with inhale after inhale
until my belly is full with the heaviest of thoughts
and my nightmares circle around and around my skull until they come to rest exactly where you always said that i had that golden crown,
the one that i could never see.

i fill the void with madness
i fill the void with pointless anger,
seeping from my throat and drowning my tongue
tasting bitter like a rotten lemon
but the bitterness is better than tasting nothing at all
and it sticks to my chapped lips like an old friend.


i fill the void with endless calculations
meticulously measuring my emptiness clinging onto my insides
with a measuring stick
and even though i measure with repetitive precision,
it never measures up to my own highest standards

and I fill the void by hurling insults at your face
and even after you’ve closed the door, like a poignant period finally occurring at the end of a infinite infinite run on sentence.
i continue to spit, spit fiery slurs that in reality fall more like water droplets that ultimately accumulate mid air
and last a little while,
but never outlast the darkness that is fiercely stuck to the soles of my shoes.

And I breathe it back in
and I breathe it back in
just to feel a little bit more full.

I fill the void with a look of contentment that i plaster on my face because
i
i
can feel when you are looking
i fill the void with confidence
i fill the void with courage
i fill the void by carrying fear across my chest and over my shoulder like i’m going into battle and never
coming
back.

i fill the void with the hope that i can hope hard enough to fill myself up again
but no matter how much i fill

i can feel my insides draining
faster than a bottomless kitchen sink.

and regardless of how hard i clasp my hands against the gaping hole where i used to gently hold a relentless summer,

i can feel that the coldest winter has begun to replace it.
and i can almost still feel its warmth
just like I used to when i used to..
when you used to say you could feel it too.

my frigid fingers lock around my neck as i finally release that empty feeling that buries my deepest desires

and i feel my wild beating beating heart finally submitting to resolve.

and i realize
that i can never be full.
I realize
that I will never be full.

And so i float away
like an abandoned ballon

just like my mother said the others did
and when i join them there
they remind me that at least i’m not alone.
and they tell me that perhaps in the end
the point
was not to be full anyway.