it does not carve a place inside my heart and demand it empty. this hollowness sits beside me like an oak tree, overshadowing and demanding. I fear it will become so great that I'll forget how to feel as it towers over me. Even while the beating of my heart peers from behind the leaves. Still there but ignored in favour of the desolate sky.

I never knew you wore a mask,
Not one stitched of velvet and lace,
But something deeper, carved in silence,
A role you played without a stage.

They called you charming, bold, and bright,
A leading star in life's cruel play,
But now I sift through tattered pages—
Scripts you wrote, then cast away.

Each line rehearsed, each smile strained,
A careful act, a practiced art.
But somewhere in the endless stage,
You lost the echoes of your heart.

Did you ever dream of slipping out,
Of shedding costumes, painted grins?
Or did the role become so seamless
You forgot where it begins?

Your laughter filled the hollow halls,
Your voice rang sweet, devoid of doubt.
Yet I can see it now—between the lines,
A silent plea you dared not shout.

And when the curtain slowly fell,
Did you expect a standing cheer?
Or did you hope, in some cruel mercy,
That no one saw you disappear?

I found the notes you never spoke,
The truths you buried in your chest.
The world’s applause still lingers hollow,
Yet you have finally found your rest.

So take your bow, oh phantom friend,
Beneath the lights that burn so bright.
I only wish I'd seen you sooner,
Before you faded into night.

Tolling hungrily the hollow bell
High in pious belfry hung.

Lofty words as pride dictates
From deep in cavernous dwellings
To keep a doctrine as one
Keeps hope of the future
Locked in a chest --
The ritual of past and present notions.

Receding line at edge of seaboard
Feeding on dry land the watery grave
Filled with borrowed sentiments adrift.
The open sea -- open sores of prejudice

Cut off from inlets of vision and reason.
Preserved as Lenin's body under glass.

The sky doesn't smile today.
It has the imperfectly carved moon.
A bright lit hollow upon our heads
Lightening the earth like a
Lone in dark street light.

My soul is a lacuna
An empty void
Filled with nothingness

It's hallow and dark
The cold walls
Covered in cobwebs and mildew

And I search
Far and wide
To find the missing piece

The missing piece
That will fill my lacuna
And make me complete again

Mary, a name, not just a whisper,
But a haunting echo of a wrong,
An imprint left by years of scorn,
Borne on the breath of regret and sorrow.


Mary, the syllables heavy,
Each letter a shackle to history,
Carrying the weight of unspoken grudges,
Of mistakes and broken promises.


The eyes that once shone with innocent hope,
Now dulled by the tarnish of disdain,
Mary—each mention a scrape of bitterness,
A reminder of all that’s been lost.


In the hollow spaces where your name lingers,
The silence screams louder than words,
Regret twisting like thorns around the memory,
Sadness pooling where love once dared to tread.


Mary, an echo of a choice not taken,
A ghost in the mirror of faded dreams,
You bear the brunt of every forgotten apology,
A name suffused with the agony of the past.


In the rooms where once was laughter,
Now only the hollow chime of contempt,
Mary—crushed beneath the weight of expectations,
A symbol of what might have been.


Forgive us, for we know not the damage,
The cruel irony of naming, the sharp sting,
Of turning beauty into a battlefield,
Where every utterance is a scar.


Mary, cursed with the burden
Of an inheritance you never sought,
Your name, a shadow of what was lost,
A testament to the bitterness we carry.

In the depths of my soul lies a hollow
A void that echoes with endless sorrow
A deep ache that no one can follow
A pain so raw, it's hard to swallow

I try to fill it with fleeting pleasures
But they only serve as temporary measures
The emptiness remains, a constant tether
Dragging me down, no end in sight, forever

I search for meaning, for some reprieve
But all I find is grief upon grief
I long for solace, a moment of peace
To bring an end to this endless disease

So I wander alone in this empty space
Hoping to find a way to embrace
The hollow that haunts me

Warring colors busting at the seams,
the day-burnt sun's fists
sag and dip into the clouds,
weary of the battle the night has won.
And the night sired children,
restless as the dawn,
riveted the dark with metal sheets
and armed it with visions
of an obscured future
polluted with hollow promises
stirring in their minds.  
Hope lay dying,
dank with mold and blood,
her cries met with clogged ears
and barred doors.
They were against mother,
she who fills their bellies with
rice and corn,
she, who pours water onto their
glass to the brim,
she who softens their fall with
carpets of moss for their bed
and canopies for shade—betrayed
and thrown out with the wolves.  
Now these,
and what sorrow to behold
hands holding up their voice
snatched and pocketed
for a bushel of grain
to fend off pangs of hunger
away for days,
in return, all their tomorrows
until none to spare.
Mother why have they forsaken you?
You gave them life,
now they bring you death.

—e.d. maramat | erwinism