27/06/2024
Echoes in the Hollow: A Lament of PTSD
By Joel Hawksley
In the hollow chambers of the soul, where shadows twist and linger,
Among the fragments of time, broken and disjointed, there lies a wound,
A wound festering in the silent hours, echoing through the corridors
Of memory, a stark and relentless reminder of battles unseen.
We are the hollow men, in the valley of desolation,
Where each thought, each breath, is tinged with the residue of dread,
For in the night, the past whispers, haunting, spectral,
Drawing us into the vortex of our own despair.
Time present and time past,
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And the echoes of our torment stretch across the unseen abyss,
Where the wheel of suffering turns unceasingly, grinding hope to dust.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,
Yet each spoonful, each sip, is laced with the bitter taste of anguish,
The inescapable drone of remembered fear,
As the shadows stretch long and dark, consuming the light.
Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act,
Falls the Shadow, casting a pall over the fleeting moments of peace,
And in the stillness, in the dead of night,
We confront the ghosts of what was, what could have been.
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper,
A whimper of the soul, exhausted by the relentless barrage of phantoms,
Seeking solace, yet finding only the hollow resonance of silence.
O dark night of the soul, in the interstices of our being,
Where the fragments of our lives lay scattered,
Let us find some fragment of peace, some whisper of redemption,
In the broken symphony of our existence.
