Never Again, Always Again

It is not the faceless quiet of mornings,

nor the phone’s unbroken hush,

but the ache of a life unwoven—

a house where my breath rattles like loose panes,

and shadows coil like serpents in corners.

Each day dons the same threadbare coat,

gray as ash, heavy as the sky before a storm.

The mirrors are dark pools, reflecting nothing

but the echo of a soul alone.

Coffee steams, tasting of distant moons,

cold, hollow, untasted.

Each night the keys fall on the table—

a bell tolling across empty planets.

The bed swallows me like a star collapsing,

my hands clawing at sheets cold as stone,

my voice a comet’s tail fading into void.

People flare like meteors in a gale—

a borrowed laugh, a fleeting glance—

but they burn out, leaving only cosmic smoke,

the vacuum of air heavy with absence.

Loneliness does not cut deepest.

It is memory’s supernova:

the brush of a hand, warm as summer dusk,

the wordless ease of a shared pulse,

now vanished into the black of space.

Gone, a light snuffed out.

I carry the cruelest truth:

I will never hold that warmth again.

Yet every day turns on its rusted hinge—

empty rooms orbiting me like moons,

a clock’s relentless tick like a distant pulsar,

a life lived alone,

always, always alone,

adrift in the infinite night.