their sound is cacophony
buried deep in the trenches  
of your mind. they say it's
like a prison these days,
wounds and warriors
bound tight by the old
vines of loss and loneliness.
you look in the mirror
and you see the pale
reflection of a ghost,
someone you used to be,
the soul of life so long
gone that her shape is
tenuous at best, a translucent
curtain between this life
and another, one where maybe
you didn't live as an empty
vessel desperate for meaning.
maybe in that life you didn't
live as an undoing. the fractured
lines of this life are smooth
glass there, unmarred by
want and need, unbroken.
in another life,
you are clean.