Empty Spaces

Whispers of the winter snow and frosted ice.

Blankets of white, soft lullabies.

Usher the screaming children in the night once again.

The children finally slumber, dreaming of a pathway to a secret garden.

The waking world is not as kind.

Sitting in the living room.

Dead.

Nothing but a skeleton in an armchair.

Thinking about the car parked in the driveway beckoning for a passenger.

A meal.

Fireplace crackles and fire wood is stacked high.

Keep distracted by chopping wood, the same wood from the same trees that gives oxygen so.

Asphyxiation sounds like a dream come true.

On the last breathe, let the prisoner of the mind flyaway.

Bellows puff flames and smoke into a whirl of visions and nostalgia.

A time no longer retrievable.

See the creatures of the night crawl from the chimney.

They grasp the brick with their bony fingers, yearning to drag the husk of a human being away into the night.

Shadows roll across the wall, briefly filling in the cracks.

They reach the same way he did.

Drink, and you drink and drink some more.

Hit the bottom of the bottle.

Scream into the pillow until you fall asleep.

Lets dream of scenes unreal.

Benevolence does not exist in this reality.

Time is frozen and eventually ices over the heart.

The same way meats are kept in the freezer to stop them going rancid.

Dance with the demons while the candle wax melts into a thickened mess.

Dip fingers into the wax to feel the burn, to feel anything else.

Read the letters again and again, stained from droplets of salted tears.

They do not comfort, they burden a heavy heart more so.

Night grows dark and cold.

Alone in the dark is more frightening than any beast lurking in the night.

Lay there for hours staring into nothing until you find yourself drifting.

The nights are now mostly filled by insomnia.

The urge to sleep forever but unable to.

Until...

Waking for the tragedy to start anew.

Repeating the same mundane tasks on autopilot.

The plane is heading for a crash.

Plummeting into the mattress to feel where he once used to be.

Hug the empty space for the comfort of a ghost.

Boiling the kettle for two but making the coffee for one.

The crying of a child pierced the air.

Every time it stabs the air, it makes the ears bleed.

Mourning the silence yet there is also silence where his words used to stay.

Absence and a mind of disarray.

A mind that is gradually being hijacked.

Drive the car to work.

The car is satisfied now that the passenger is within the belly of the beast.

The car is ready for a feast.

Control the speed at a steady pace of 110km/hr on the freeway.

Listen to the pour of rain and the patter on the windows.

It sounds the same as tears falling on parchment.

The kettle at home whistles away.

Whistle to the tune on the radio to a song once shared together.

The rain gets louder and the mind begins to untether.

Try to navigate the steering and speed begins to steadily increase.

Velocity of machine on water and snow slicked asphalt.

The sharp corners cut like glass.

The car spins out and rolls.

The music cuts short of the chorus.

Fair skin and shattered ribs.

Blood vessels burst in the eyes like fireworks.

Neck bent just a fraction too far to the left.

Resting on bags of glorified oxygen, the oxygen now deprived from the body.

Wait again for those empty spaces to fill.