My soul is hollow, vacant, there is nothing inside.

Behind the warm hazel and striking brown intensity, the mirror of my eyes,

There is nothing.

A grey death, a barren land,

A slight wish for someone to hold my hand.

I drive gently through the street,

Observe how the sun, silently illuminates.

The sky projecting a perfect, powder blue, unshakeably still.

We all three are silent.

As they bring joy to the day,

I move invisibly, ‘apart from’,

In a quiet separation,

With a passivity so intense,

It’s almost violent.

The trees, bare of leaves,

Stand solid in their ground.

By the cold, they’re unperturbed,

Similarly the absence of birds.

But they don’t have a story invading their minds,

To understand, to make well, a living hell.

The complexities of plant life to human life, are different, less gory,

Predictable with beauty and mastery,

Unafflicted by sores

Caused by those with ugly flaws,

Leaving life-long scores that may never bleed.

The victim convulses in a web feeling they will never be free.

Dead behind the eyes,

A soul that wants to cry,

Sapped of any vitality,

It’s presence a mere formality.

It slows me down to ‘just living’.

Enduring each hour, each day.

This is what is meant by survival,

It’s not surviving the crimes of others.

It’s tolerating living in the grey.

Surprisingly exhausting to note,

I need to lay down to get through each day.

Sometimes the void does fill,

But it’s with anxiety or abject fear,

Something bad’s about to happen,

To harm you and it’s near.

You search in the void unending,

If you found it maybe you could stop it,

You get hit by a locked tight door.

No way of opening to look in

Cast away in the fear again,

Frozen in fear,

Waiting for it to subside.

Rarely the void explodes,

Can’t control whether friend, random stranger or foe.

Completely oblivious to danger,

You rage,

Your mouth moving against your will.

When it’s over, you’re perplexed

“How’d that happen?”

Weeping like a baby in a manger.

In those rare moments of company,

Miraculously you animate, come alive,

There’s a lift in the weight,

You see your former self, the grey abates.

Disappointing then to walk away,

So quickly to deflate.

You touched vibrancy, happiness.

But now it feels like it was fake.

Once again empty, you ache.

I’m somewhere close to animal life

When I try to fill the void.

Saturate in sugar, milky fat, biscuits.

Spend a small salary in the use of empty calories.

Numbing out on on-line shopping’s a problem,

The parcels mount up in my hallway,

On delivery I’m shamed and solemn.

Gentle self touch can bring warmth to the empty space,

As long as it doesn’t get excessive,

All day long becomes somewhat regressive.

When I’m feeling more evolved,

Art and writing will win.

Pride and satisfaction emerges,

the opposite of other sins.

But if truth be told,

The void drains quickly to feelings of old.

And I continue to survive on empty,

Dead behind the eyes.