Who's to say love needs to be soft and gentle?

The room breathes without me Walls lean in, practicing silence and my name once loud falls through the cracks like dust

I eat time with a dull spoon hours tasting of rust and old rain The clock blinks, unbothered its heartbeat foreign, mechanical a reminder that something here still moves

Windows are mirrors at night I search them for proof of a face and find only the dark rehearsing my absence Even shadows keep their distance afraid to catch whatever I’ve become

I speak sometimes just to hear sound break it’s own neck The words don’t travel far they curl up halfway cold animals that refuse to live

Loneliness isn’t loud it doesn’t scream or beg It sits beside you, patient counting everything you didn’t say until silence feels earned

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

-- C. S. Lewis

What Dreams May Come