Category: DD 2024

Arrival and Departure

Brought in screaming
to a sterile room, harsh with fluorescent light,
no map, no compass, no stars—
each of us arrive.

Weaned from the mother,
we reach—
for the bottle of milk, sweet and pure,
then soda, fizzed with false joy,
then whiskey, heavy with regret,
then pills, silent as snow.

Taken out screaming
to a shadowed box, chilled by the weight of earth,
no map, no compass, no stars—
we vanish,
contextless as the wind.

Pandemic

Days roll into days,
the thread of time unraveling,
and hazy grey pervades all things—
the sky, the ground, and the hearts of those who once carried laughter like lanterns.

Sanctified and desecrated,
the sacred and the profane blur
beneath this veil of grief.
Even sunlight dims,
its brilliance muted,
as if afraid to intrude
upon the solemnity of despair.

Nothing is immune.
Not the towering pines once swaying freely
nor the rivers that carried hope
in their timeless currents.
The world breathes out sorrow,
a fog from deep within,
wrapping every corner in a quiet ache.

Yet, beneath this blanket of sadness,
something stirs—a pulse, faint but steady,
a whisper that reminds us
that even in the haze,
the earth turns.

December Quiet

The air smells of frost and woodsmoke,
and the sky is a pale, aching gray.
Morning drifts in slowly,
like a stranger unsure of the room.

Walking through the silent trees,
their branches stripped bare—
no leaves to catch the weight of the wind,
no words to ease its passing.

Light spills from distant windows,
but it doesn’t reach this place.
Only the sound of shoes on concrete,
and the creak of a season folding in on itself.

There are no songs here,
no laughter carried through the air.
Just the steady rhythm of my breath,
and the waiting silence of December.