On Emptiness
The Gate, The Vine, The Exit
A triptych for the unread
0425.2025
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I. The Ghost Garden
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I have wandered through the garden of this world
with my hands full of unopened letters.
Not from lovers,
but from ghosts—
those who looked at me like a star they could name,
and then vanished
before the name was spoken.
They called it love.
They said care.
I called it weather—
storms that smelled of honey
but left salt in the soil,
destruction in their wake.
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II. The Vine and the Gate
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I have learned that, for me,
love arrives with a key—
only to lock the door behind me
when I travel.
And there’s a vine that holds my ribs,
promising my fear its blossoms,
then withering
the moment they bloom.
No one stays. Not really.
They gather petals,
sip the nectar,
then drift away
before they can touch the root.
Now the garden is still.
The fountains dry.
The statues haunted.
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III. The Final Flower
•❦❁❦•
I no longer wait beside the gate.
The air has grown too still.
My hands are stained
with the ink of unsent letters,
and the keys I was given
have led to empty rooms.
Let no one say
this was about a single man.
Let no one say
this was about family.
Let no one say
this was about friends.
This is about the ache
beneath all my thresholds—
the promise made in childhood
that someone would come,
and stay.
No one did.
And so I will leave with grace.
I will dissolve like perfume into night.
I will press one final flower
between the pages of this story—
not for them to remember me,
but so that I can forget
the ache of being unread.
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m.c.f.
AI generated conceptual image
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for the poetry
