Let Me In
I promise, my beloved Susan,
the void left in your absence
was better yesterday.
Today, I must swallow
your memory
like a slick oyster,
absence of light
unheard
by graveyard ears.
Your wavering essence
lingers
in fragile mind’s eye,
like the flight
of birds – a fusion
of two souls,
laced together.
A shrunken world
of simple rhythms
of hearts once nigh.
Existence has ended
as your stars
fade away -
an empty bowl
of raw edged reality
of lonely days.
Residue lies wedged
between distant walls.
Oh let me in
once more
to embrace
your thin, cold skin.
Surrender
I promise Susan,
The void was better yesterday
My eyes were not as swollen
My cheeks not as wet
My heart empty
But not feeling
As broken
As it has been
The rational mind
Believed
That maybe
Time was
On my side and
Healing was
Possible
But it was
Premature
Today the limbic system
Kicked in again
And I became
Aware
Aware of absence
Of pain
Of a heart
Broken
By your absence
The feelings
Spread into the void
Pushing it
Back open
Until the tears flowed
In the great chasm
And I was forced to
Surrender
Becoming a part of
The emptiness
Your untimely loss
Has created
#challenge #void #poetry #loss
The void.
Mark sat in the living room, watching TV. It was an old sit-com about a white family that adopted a black kid, and all of the standard racist humor that results.
As Mark reached for the clicker, he noticed a small black spot, like some of the pixels on the TV screen were dead. He got up and walked over to the TV, and he noticed something else- the spot was not on the TV screen, but floating a few inches in front of it, and that it was growing. It went from a period at the end of a sentence to a dime in about a full second. In another second it was larger than a quarter. Mark backed off, frightened, as it grew to the size of a dinner plate, and then an extra large pizza. It stopped growing after that. Mark peered into the void. In it, he could see everything and nothing. He felt what infinity feels like, it was like all of time itself was compressed into a single instant. Mark was not a religious person, but looking into that void was the most spiritual experience he had ever had, and could ever imagine.
He knew he had to share it with someone.
He called his sister, Susan. He tried to explain to her the wonderous thing in his living room, but words failed him. He begged for her to come over. Susan said she already had plans this evening, but she could be there in the morning, see his miracle, then they could go to brunch.
Mark spent most of the night peering into the depths of the infinite blackness. Every molecule of his body became self-aware, and became one with the air around him, the house, the city, the world. He felt himself become one with the the universe.
By 3:00 am, Mark fell asleep. He woke up when the doorbell rang. He went to the door, and let his sister in. They exchanged pleasantries, and she looked at the large flat black disc floating in his living room.
... but now, it was just solid black. It was not the infinite nothingness, it was just nothing.
Susan said it was truly remarkable, and asked how he got it to float like that. She tapped it with her finger. It was solid. After she tapped it, it fell to the floor, leaning on the coffee table. She then began recommending places to go for brunch.
Then, Mark said...
"I promise Susan, the void was better yesterday."
Yesterday
I promise you Susan
the void was better yesterday
Now when I stare into the abyss
It stares back at me
Our love was eternal
It was carefree
It was the stuff of fantasy
Our love
It filled the void in my heart
Filled the void in my soul
When we took our vows
We said until death doth us part
And now it has happened
Death has taken you
Away from me
I promise you Susan
The void was better yesterday
PTA Moms
"I promise, Susan, the void was better yesterday!"
"Kathy, what it was like yesterday doesn't matter if it's swallowed three volunteers and a janitor today! Get that black hole out of the teacher's lounge or you're no longer secretary."
Susan (you know, the president of the Parent Teacher Association?) bustled out of the lounge carrying a box full of t-shirts that would be on sale in front of the school within the hour. Kathy, the newly elected secretary, stared into the nothingness where the vending machine that only sold Coke usually was with something between apprehension and desire.
"If I walk into it, I won't have to deal with Susan's crap anymore. But then Andrew won't be able to go on the end-of-year field trip. Damned conditional scholarship; whose idea was that in the first place?"
Kathy began by putting up caution tape between the wall and the counter, careful to not fall into the black space, which was now emitting a sinister whispering. Or maybe it was just white noise; she couldn't quite tell over the screaming of the principal down the hall. It was a third Friday, which was Presentation Day (as everyone knew), and giving a PowerPoint displaying the school's monthly progress to the county superintendent was every administrator's worst nightmare. The secretary then printed a sign in large Comic Sans font, displaying "CAUTION: VOID HERE - DO NOT ENTER", though she knew it was practically useless since everyone thought they were the exception to the rule. If they wanted to have their person absorbed by the pulsating shadow for the sake of an ice-cold Coke, so be it.
Kathy left for five minutes to put the sign-up sheets for the next bake sale on the front table, where two visor-wearing mothers were exchanging money for tickets as they gossiped about Sharon ("She just remarried!" "So soon after her divorce? Very suspicious." "I know! And he's an accountant!" "Oh, this won't last."). The two lines of parents waiting to enter stretched down the steps, but Kathy knew that asking the women to hurry it up would only make her less popular, so she headed back through the office past the secretary, who was feeding the odd new fish, to the lounge.
The void had spread, and now it was gnawing away at the edge of the pushpin-punctured announcement board. Kathy put up a new strand of caution tape and sat to ponder a solution in one of the red leather armchairs, where the attached sensors read her heart rate, her body temperature, her current emotions, and her opinion on the state of the decreasing whale population before sending the information to a satellite, which sent it to the county office to be read by someone in the Statistics Department and filed away, never to be seen by anyone else ever again. Kathy was comforted by the fact that there was someone out there paying attention to her feelings.
The darkness began to whisper- definitely whisper, not just emit vague noise. It was a little loud to be considered a whisper, but it wasn't normal volume talking and Kathy couldn't think of a better descriptive word. She listened to it, and moved perhaps closer than she should have in order to hear its message better. There were no distinctive words, although it had plenty to say, and she knew that it wanted something. This void, like all people and most living, self-aware organisms, wanted something.
Susan came back.
"Kathy! What are you doing?! It's still here! Do you want to lose your position? The fair is filling up and teachers and volunteers are going to be flooding in here for a break from their booths! Do you realize how much work goes into the snack stands? Or the educational presentations where we teach students and their parents to adhere to the status quo and accept the knowledge approved and censored by our county office and benevolent state government? Or the games, like Pin the Sacrifice to the Superintendent on the Altar, and Vote For the Right Candidates? Do you?"
"I..." Kathy paused. She did know how much work went into the booths, and felt shamed for a moment before remembering that she helped set up the fair earlier that afternoon, and submitted most of the booth ideas at the committee meetings. She had done more work than, perhaps, even Susan had.
The void whispered. Kathy listened.
The void whispered to Kathy personally. Kathy listened, personally, to the void.
Kathy knew what it wanted.
She did something, whatever the pulsating blackness wanted, and Susan screamed some, and then she was gone and so was the void and what Kathy did never happened, and neither had Susan or the void.
Tricia (you know, the president of the Parent Teacher Association?) entered to see Kathy taking down the caution tape from in front of the vending machine.
"Kathy? What are you doing!? You have to go man the costume stand! Everyone is vying for it to open; they all want their fake mustaches and personalities!"
"I know, Tricia; I was just about to go. This caution tape was here for some reason and I thought I'd clean it up." Tricia bustled out in the privileged way that only rich soccer moms can.
Kathy paused to put two dollars in the slot of the vending machine that only sold Coke, and considered her choices briefly before deciding and pressing the button for a Dr. Pepper. The little screen above the slot went black for a moment, reminding Kathy of something significant, also black, but she couldn't remember what she was reminded of. The screen flashed "$0.25 CHANGE" in neon green lettering, breaking her unremembered recollection, and a can of rootbeer tumbled down. Her change went somewhere else, but Kathy wasn't allowed the knowledge of where.
The Void Is Open
"I promise Susan, the void was better yesterday," I looked up at her, her hands on her hips, a stern expression on her face.
"Really? By how much?" She asked. She pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. She stared me down, my face burning with shame.
"Two yards," I said.
"Oh," She said. "So, six feet?"
"When you say that you make it sound like so much!" I said.
"IT IS!" She yelled at me. She leaned over the table, just inches from my face. "Just one more inch and me are done for!"
"Okay," I said. "That is a big deal."
"Yes, it is," She said.
"The void has opened an inch more," Stacy ran into the room to tell Susan.
"WHAT?!?" Susan and I yelled in unison.
There was a flash of light and then there was an explosion.
End of Story
"I promise, Susan," we said in Unison, almost pleading. "The Void was better yesterday."
Susan just stood there, eyes wide, jaw dropped, and any other cliche for surprise. We're not too concerned with adjectives when the Void starts acting up. There are more important things to be worried about than adjectives.
The Void groaned. It had already thrown off two of my posters. They had fallen to the floor, ripped and mangled. It did this while we were sleeping and nearly gave us a heart attack. After scolding It for ruining $20 worth of art and part of the barrier we'd built, It had rumbled and twisted and somehow did all this while doing nothing at all, because It is a Void, and a Void is Nothing, and Nothing cannot become a different Nothing, except that this one had.
"You..." Susan muttered. "You weren't kidding."
"Yeah, I can't tell you exactly what's different-"
"You have a Void. In your room."
"...yeah, and It's been acting really weird since whatever that was showed up."
"What-whatever you think replaced your roommate?" she laughed. "Do you really think something replaced him?"
"Are you really questioning me right now? In front of the Void that shares my room?" The Void growled in agreement. We nodded at it in gratitude. Always treat a Void with respect. "Look, you're the first person to actually see It besides us."
"Us?"
"Me." We quickly corrected ourselves. We didn't feel like explaining something else to Susan today. She already seemed overwhelmed. "So will you help? Help me figure this out?"
She laughed a little too quickly, a little too loudly. She did not laugh out of genuine happiness. She laughed out of fear. "Do I have much of a choice?" she asked, seemingly directed at the Void. It emitted a sense of urgency.
We smiled.
Voided beacon
A crack on the head
A fatal impact to my breath
Expressions of the void
To which I dare not tread
However within the void
There is a thunder strike -
A memory that never seems to fade
In the midst of growing mist
Coating the childhood fields I know
There is a glimmering beacon -
that forever seems to grow
Of the time Susan, my dear
You wrote me that letter
Of how you wished you were here
Bearing promises that I'd get better
Not once did I think you'd be one to leave
I always felt so safe
From the gentle ways in which you held me
A beacon of hope turned sour
Shrouded by cobwebs
Festering sentiment filled dust
Getting caught up in all of my longing and dead lust
So I pick up my pen
And to you I write my letter
"I promise you Susan,
Yesterday, the void was better."
