Silence – Seething – Stillness

Ashes – Grey and black fill the throat, choking off life.

Only barren, sterile, ache fills the chest.

The exquisite has abandoned me somewhere between pleasure and pain.

Now only numb, dull, persistent ache.

It is dumb, with no voice, no purpose.

Pain with no purpose is a cruel thing.

Exposed as foolish sears the flesh.  It dries and clings to the bone.

Even the victims triumph over me.  Yet even in all their droning they do not comprehend the wave that crashed over me.  They are right, but only about themselves.

They articulate their pain and their pain demands justice, rightly so.  But I am impotent.  I have no healing to give.  Only ashes.

Tears now, condensed like jelly.  They fill the throat.  They amass themselves behind the eyes, unable to exit the body.  It burns and steals life from me.

Eyes once filled with joy now lifeless.

Bitterness permeates life.  Not bitterness at life but the bitterness of life.

Nothing is sweet.  Joy has abandoned me.

All good seems foul to me, or perhaps it is I who fouls the good.

Laughter of friends and family and loves long-held are no comfort.  I cannot cling to them.

I recoil into the ashes. . . Into the silence.

I know not why.

Except perhaps there I have a voice.

A voice of mourning and terrible grief.