Wanderlust is such a romanticized term. It has such a beautiful air of brilliance. A word associated with travel and experiencing the best of life. What they don't tell you is the heavy side. The side where you can travel the whole world and still feel nothing. The part that feels aimless and empty. The dizzying feeling of dread that nothing will ever be good enough. If I can't find joy eating cacio e pepe in the heart of Rome, or exploring castles in Scotland, will I ever find joy? It makes you wonder why we wander when nothing seems to fill that hollowness in your heart. Not people, places, food, or things - nothing. Not only am I wandering the world but my soul also wanders for a place to rest, a place to call home. Nothing seems to fit. Nothing seems to feel right. Why am I cursed to wander when to most it is a blessing?



-t.s.

Scooped out
Pumpkin guts
Spilled onto my
Newspaper-covered
Kitchen table
Spoon-scraped
Prepared to be cut
Two triangle eyes
For me, please
A mouth with missing teeth
A candle light
At my center
To shine through,
Illuminate the hollow

This sorrow, unforgiven, Hollow, be thy name.

The screams, they come, the pain has won, as cursed and filled with aggression.

Give me today some mercy instead, and forgive me my debt, and I might just feel better.

And please change this sensation, and make hope believable.

Mother and daughter sing as the antihorizons close onto the green sickly hills
A ground of smiles and acceptance as eyes wander across a familiar landscape
Homes for families and food for crowds
The concept of time has evaded us and we are forced to gaze at the frozen perversions and dwell
I’ve grown too much for my stream of consciousness to allude to tranquility that rattled my eyes
Like a pinball machine
Or a bag of avian bones
Hollow with ease but hauntingly lightweight
The very static presence
That I was promised is
Laden with stark and dangerous afterthoughts
The antipasti of my existence but the full course meal is not complete without it
I let time trail through my fingertips like honey oozing from a diseased honeycomb
It has escaped me yet I feel no
Burning desire
To fundamentally and systematically ***** my—
My brother told me round the coffee table
You see I’m shooting for the moon but you’re painting me in indigo

You are not the one.
Me and you, we make no sense.

But.

For my wasted hollowed heart, you are the only one.

I have these masses of hollow spaces inside of my chest,
and I don't mean to get my hopes up, but I want to believe,
that you are trying to do some good. But meanwhile,
I am ******* air into this body;
I can't feel my lungs,
and I realize,
that I don't want any of it.

A utopia where love is uncertain
Things don't look any better today
Unable to go back
Unable to keep up this deception the way I hoped
Slowly lapsing in depravity
I hardly realize what has already become rotten
Now I'm nothing
but an empty shell built of lies

My thoughts are on a merry go round,
churning my mind in perpetual cycles
till it has been named chaos.

A certain memory rings in my ear,
deafening out the world;
as it climbs and slithers down my spine
echoing through the hollow shell I've become.