There’s a hole

There’s a Hole

There’s a hole.

Yesterday
everything was perfect.

Whole.

Pure.

Then something disappeared.

Maybe a trinket.
Maybe something grand.

Whatever it was,
it was no more.

And where it had been—

a tiny black spot.

I watched it grow.

Until there was a hole.

A large, gaping, black void.
It lingers—
inky darkness
centered in my home.

I feel it calling me,
beckoning, pleading,
taunting;

Plunge.
Dive in.

Like cool, sweet, reflective water
on a sweltering, blistering day.

I don’t know how much I can take.

I hear the cries of yesterday.

My babies vanished
the very same day
the hole came
and stayed.

I hear their cries
from somewhere inside.

And I wonder—

if I enter the blackness,
if I search deep enough,
maybe
they survived.

But from the corner
there’s another set of eyes.

The only child left,
scared
and wise.

He didn’t enter the darkness.

Instead,
he scurried to my side.

I wheeze and gasp,
breathing labored.
I feel tears in my eyes.

His
he tries to hide.

The hole almost makes a sound—

a gurgle,
then a laugh.

I know it swallowed
the rest of them.

For a moment
I stick an arm inside.

It pulls.

A vacuum
sucking me deeper,
flesh tearing
as I fight against it.

And still—

I feel him outside,
alone.

I see him
in that cold home.

That is enough.

Enough to ground me.
Enough to leave
some fight in me.

I pull myself out.

Torn,
but alive.

We turn our backs
on the hole.

Not forgetting.

Never forgetting.

He cracks a smile
as we take a step,

and for a moment I think of diving back—
into risk,
regret,
whatever waits beneath—

but while he is still here,

while those frightened eyes
still search for mine,

it doesn’t seem worthwhile.

There is an absence.

Her laugh.

Her smile.

After a while
I can almost forget.

But when we leave the house,
no matter where we go,

it happens the same.

The place is beautiful.

Whole.

For a while.

Then something disappears.

Maybe something tiny—
a trinket,
a picture, or something more grand.

Something that should be there
isn’t.

And in the space it leaves—

a tiny black dot.

From the darkness
flies buzz,

scurrying about,
dancing on decay,

like a body
buried away,

whose scent grows
day by day.

The dot spreads.

The flies multiply.

And slowly,

from the place
where something used to be,

the hole reemerges—

large,

gaping,

its void consuming

everything

around it

till there’s just a hole.