my bookshelves are empty,
my room is too.
the emptiest however, is my heart
for this house isn't mine anymore.

i tried to make this house a home,
decorated the walls with paintings,
every other empty space with plants and trinkets
but alas, a house remains a house.

over the past three years,
i have familiarised myself with every
scratch and crack and dent in the walls.
they whisper sadness as we depart.

my washroom tiles look strangely blue too.
they've listened to me wail and sob and curse
they've seen me dance and sing and laugh
they know I'll forget about them soon enough though.

a year down the line, i will forget about the crack on the ceiling wall.
i will forget about my favorite corner in the room,
and promptly the house will forget me too.
for the paintings will be removed, and the tiles replaced.

the walls will be painted over
removing any trace of the fact
that this house
was once a home.

the labyrinth is all i know.
i might have been born in it,
my nascent cries and wails amplified
by its damp and desolate walls.

maybe i crawled into it as an infant,
naive and unaware
of the horrors it housed,
for the labyrinth imitates life.

i do remember still,
when i realised i was stuck
like a rat in a maze
with no end in sight.

thirteen was when i built
a sojourn in the labyrinth.
a bubble, for no one but me
and my hopes and my dreams.

but soon the dismal walls closed in.
the bubble popped.
i tried desperately to hide
the glowing orb of hope deep in my heart.

yet slowly, it ebbed away.
with it, died all that was good
with it, paled every color
with it, i was lost at last.

with all that is left in me,
i still try,
try to find a way out.
i want to escape, i do.

how will i ever get out of this labyrinth?