On Emptiness

Receding

(For The Dead Inside)

0402.2025

You are receding—

falling into the horizon

like dusk devouring light.

I struggle saving you—

but even your shadow vanished.

When our thread tore,

it took the scent of spring—

the flowers had just begun

to color my smile

with the lie of joy.

Then came the light—

unforgiving,

unblinking—

dragging the dead

from my heart

into their graves,

and beneath time’s silence,

which keeps them

as captives.

They are like you:

a goodness,

a fragile fire,

burning out

and falling

into a lesson

inside a thousand

lessons.

I must be thankful somehow—

but the gratitude burns.

My eyes have turned to deserts.

The sun devours me.

The night drinks my life.

What goes unnamed

because you lied?

What am I to think,

now that I see—

the joke is me?

I will think:

Turn me into a bird,

so my wings break

from my hiding heart

and carry its sorrow

from night

into half-light.

At least.

I will think:

Turn me into dust,

so I forget

what I have learned

ten thousand times.

I will think:

Let spring

cover me.

Let summer

end this cold.

Let something bloom

in the ruin

of my garden.

m.c.f.

Photo, 2024, m.c.f.

Loneliness

A Bird Alone

0319.2025

Don’t let loneliness crush you with its starkness

or the weight of all it never says.

Let it be a bird—

a restless thing lifting you higher.

When the arms that could hold you are gone,

when the voice of warmth has dimmed,

remember—

loneliness is nothing, truly nothing.

And in that nothing, space to breathe,

to move unshaped by anyone’s hands,

to stand beneath the sun,

bare,

unbound,

entirely your own—

You will find all life’s freedom.

m.c.f.