Addiction binds us fast in heavy chains,
A shadowed weight that lingers in our veins.
They call it substance trapped within our use,
Yet sorrow strikes, a deeper, darker bruise.

Sadness unfolds in fog’s relentless gray,
Its smudging hands erase the light of day.
Cold iron wraps the heart in steady grip,
As stories fracture, fragment, and then slip.

The shadows feast on what remains of light,
And nighttime robs the soul’s remaining fight.
Our cries dissolve like whispers in the breeze,
Where hope lies bound by sorrow’s cruel decrees.

Each breath grows thin, despair now lines the air,
A shroud of anguish drapes the world laid bare.
The spiral pulls us deeper with its trace,
It carves its scars on every grieving face.

The tides of hopelessness begin their rise,
To drown the stars that once adorned the skies.
Each thought becomes a plea for what once was,
A cycle spins and ends without a cause.

Despair’s soft hands grow tighter as they clasp,
A shifting sand that’s slipping from our grasp.
Inside this pit, the shadows find their mark,
They craft betrayal hidden in the dark.

We flee the taste of fear’s relentless sting,
Yet whispers draw us back with what they bring.
Eyes hollow out beneath their whispered breath,
And face the hollow promise born of death.

The mist of validation fades from sight,
Perfection dances far beyond the night.
Tonight our tears run heavy down the well,
Where silence grows and deeper shadows dwell.

The future spreads before an endless void,
A dream undone, a shattered hope destroyed.
Each breath we draw feels like the final strain,
A fleeting gasp of life that ends in pain.

We drink the brew that sorrow serves each day,
And hunger for the dark to light our way.
The mirror shows a soul in fractured glass,
A thousand wounds that time cannot surpass.

At last, the void becomes our quiet nest,
Its darkness soothes us into hollow rest.
We dance in shadows, numbing fleeting time,
In sorrow’s arms, we find this endless rhyme.

And when the dark consumes us, soul and all,
The final breath becomes the last to fall.
A whisper rises, soft: “You’re meant for me,”
As loss transforms into eternity.

Give yourself permission to let go and to hold on tight;
Astute meditation, revolving might.
Every pulse an echo of the constant fight,
To balance the inner darkness and light.

No matter how far you delve into the darkness, do not forget to return to the light.

We usually say "step into the light"
when there's nothing but night
but do we say "step into the night"
when the light is so bright that it
not only blinds but burns out our eyes?

When extremist's play their games
to blind our sensitive eyes
it doesn't matter if they're
using darkness or light.

It's all the same if you're snowblind
or just left alone in the dark.
whether it's viral or bacterial 
it's still an infection.

Feeling our way in the heavy black
air – too thick to breathe.
fumbling around in the light
gray
air -- too thin to breathe.

Caught in the loop of groping the walls of our minds in twilight,
struggling to refocus in moonlight,
then so exhausted by daybreak
that we sleep it all off until dusk.

Too much darkness
Too much light
Too much cold
Too much heat
Too much pleasure
Too much pain
Too much sunshine
Too much rain
You can have too little
or too much of anything.

You took my light away

And let me stumble in the darkness

Why do you do this to me

I asked you to stop

But you dragged me back

Kicking and screaming all the while

I’m drowning in the flood

That you created

Prisoner within my own walls of blackened soul, heartless and afraid, impaled by dillusional thoughts of better reality and diseased judgment. Stalked by the beast of no hope
no tomorrow no yesterday not even today.... Shattered ideas, crumbled beyond compare...Death amused without doubt, juggling the cards of fate..dissolution in the cauldron of
faithless ambitions, misguided...Purpose to become something when nothing is the sum of absence through the eyes of one that understands....

the banshee wails loud -
coddles the heart of darkness;
the echoes shiver.

Closed doors and soundproof walls,
Yet darkness drowns these endless halls.
Flat on my bed, eyes trace the ceiling—
Does silence breathe, revealing meaning?

Silence should be the absence of sound,
But whispers swirl, echoing around.
Are phantoms lurking within these walls?
I race to the door—no soul in the halls.

I seek reprieve, a fragile peace,
Yet shadows mock; they never cease.
The remnants of ghosts choose to remain,
A torment etched in sorrow's refrain.

'Silence! ' I scream, through laughter, through tears.
Is this the mask of madness and fears?
'Who are you? Where do you hide? '
I beg for solace; none abide.

I rise to wander, fractured and blind,
Until I face the truth confined:
There is no other, no haunting kind—
Only the chaos within my mind.

The bourbon burns, its fire subsides,
Yet fails to drown what inside resides.
The whispers swell from faint to loud,
A tidal roar, a gathering crowd.

Their echoes rise, grotesque, unkind,
Blurring the edges of space and time.
Confusion spreads like vines that bind,
Tugging my soul, dismantling my mind.

The noose still hangs, a silent plea,
A relic of past attempts to be free.
Is this my sign to escape the fight,
To yield my place, dissolved through the night?

But even as despair takes hold,
A flicker of warmth, defiant and bold:
A memory stirs, its light entwined—
Perhaps the voice I hear is mine.

Clock hands go lazily – tick-tock.
Why should they rush? It’s almost midnight.
The Night doesn’t need their help at all.
She comes into its own rights.

She’s powerful over all that’s here.
And under its cover of darkness and gloom
We are all here, all to the last man.
We’re all locked up now in full.

We’re like prisoners of this Night,
Calm, submissive and tamed.
And clock hands go straight and true,
They’re unfailing attached.

I’m a stranger in the Night.
Ask her let me come in.
Maybe she'll let me stay the night
And I’ll find the peace and meaning.