I cannot tell if I am haunted
Or trapped in an endless reverberation.
Words from the past beat upon my mind
Again and again and again and again
Until I cannot tell if they are newly repeated
Or just bouncing around my head
Like an echo that draws strength and volume
From the walls I’ve put in place
To keep words like these out.
You spoke to me of comfort
And camaraderie in a too-late attempt
To stave off something you sense
Is growing ever closer,
A shadow you see in every mirror
But whose shape you seem unwilling to acknowledge
No matter how many times I describe it.
These friendly words ring hollow,
Changing from your voice to mine
As I remember every time
someone said them to me,
All the louder for these echoes of the past
That refuse to be stifled,
Amplified by the utter emptiness
Of everything you said just now.
You told me, hollow words
That I longed to fill with the rage
Welling up inside me,
That I should not suffer in silence.
But this silence was never mine to end.
The silence that has forced this empty exchange
Was a monster of your creation
And I have merely been its victim.
Hung out to dry so long ago, both I
And your vacant platitudes,
Have long since withered.
The hollowed ground I once claimed
Matches the concavity of your starved expressions
And I am left alone
Except for the indiscernible echoes
Of your words to me
As we are both reduced to rubble
By the impervious wall
Of your past silence.