Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife. (Proverbs 17:1)

The following is born of my pain. I hereby dedicate it to the altar.

By Your humble, obedient servant,

An Author

I find refuge in silence

when words only increase the distance between us,

hoping cold isolation will numb the hurt

and resentment oppressively intense.

I seek sanctuary within myself

when companionship turns to contempt,

veiling my soul from every grief, every joy, every sense.

Rather than safety and soothing balm,

I drift in deep space,

awed by my own overpowering insignificance,

frantically gasping for air

in a vacuum of despair.

My heart experiences the turbulence

of a dying star,

collapsing into itself

under the weight of inflicted negligence,

left a wandering black hole

to consume light and life

with an apathy worse than malevolence.

It knows only hunger,

always feeding, never satiated.

In its wake is a blank existence

of darkness and expansive emptiness.

A waking sleep turns to a living death

as heart and hope both lose cadence.

Except the occasional sigh or faint groan,

no sound escapes these pallid lips;

for this is the reign of silence…

and it will exact its price.

But I find that it is greater than I can bear.

I grow desperate in your absence.

When will the grave finally release me?

Why such a slow, agonizing demise?

My soul is indeed in an environment of virulence.

It grasps for relief,

like the parched tongue reaching for any water droplet –

blindly clutching at any chance.

I cannot continue to wander this emotional desert.

A mirage offers me temporary escape –

an oasis of the mind, in essence –

a place where I am somebody else…

somebody lovely and loveable…

and loved in abundance.

But I am not somebody else.

I cannot forget forever,

for I sense imminence.

Reality, like space debris, knocks me about

and awakens me to fresh hurts.

It leaves me with bruises and bloody dents,

severe pain but no morphine,

a hopeless diagnosis,

broken bones but no splints…

and no one to comfort me

to the end.

“Nay,” says my Prince,

“neither alone nor hopeless…and not the end.

Never forsaken nor forgotten…but loved abundantly.”

And that has kept me alive since –

those Words that traveled through emptiness,

a voice that carried in soundlessness –

revived me by His unfailing presence.

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

updated by @ceri-shaw: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM