Where laughter Died

The halls are full of voices,

yet silence rules the air.

Smiles hang from weary faces

like masks stitched from despair.

Laughter once lived here,

a bright and reckless thing,

dancing through open hearts,

teaching wounded souls to sing.

But hatred came in velvet robes,

soft-spoken, calm, and wise.

It built its throne from wounded pride

and fed on hidden lies.

Pretense followed close behind,

a shadow dressed in gold,

painting cracks with borrowed light,

making empty hearts look whole.

And so the laughter disappeared,

not with a scream, but a sigh.

No funeral bells were rung for it,

no tears were left to cry.

Now people speak in sharpened words,

their kindness carefully rehearsed.

Every embrace conceals a blade,

every blessing hides a curse.

The mirrors tell no honest tales;

they only echo what is shown.

Behind the polished performances,

everyone suffers alone.

The darkness is not born of night,

nor from the absence of the sun.

It grows where hatred learns to breathe

and truth is forced to run.

There, in the shadows of pretense,

where broken spirits gather and wait,

the saddest sound is not a cry,

but the place where laughter should have been,

swallowed whole by hate.