the empty spaces

once more, I’m tired
tired unwaking up
tired of sleeping

the cold next to me
the pillow still there
untouched
the empty space

above the bed
the light bulb
looks down at me
lidless pupil
it used to glow

no more light
as the dawn
breaks the clouds
your smell lingers
on the pillow
I need to go out

the streets slowly
stirring from slumber
the space so empty
so much it hurts
like tinnitus

the sounds around
don’t mean anything
or anymore
anymore

the cars, the stores,
the passers-by
it feels so empty
in the tube the crowd
yet I'm lost, and alone

the void around is
the void within
the silence often
the screams at night

treading the empty spaces
unlooking for you
where I first said
I love you
where you first smiled
and said
I love you back

I am where we were
happy once
happy once
your smell lingering
on the pillow
I see your smile
the memories bleeding
into one another
into reality even

breaking the veil

almost as if
you were here
but it’s just me
here again to shout
another message
hoping the wind
will carry it to you

I'm so lost
now you’ve gone
the world off-centre
spinning but
somehow stopped
clutching at the breeze

I still call your number
to hear your voice
on the answering machine
unthinking what will happen when
the voicemail will no longer work

did you get the letters
I wrote in my mind
and the pictures of
the places you liked
when we were there
now without you
I sent all the love
I had left

though I won’t send
your pillow, I cannot
I need it, like I need air
every breath
every breath
in and out

every time, you die again
every time, I die again

the empty spaces
in the bathroom
your toothbrush
on the couch
your half-read novel
on the pillow
your smell your hair
in the kitchen
your empty chair

you die again
you die, again
over and over
every day

but I keep you
deep inside me
where you won’t die
anymore
anymore
where you and I
will be safe
forever

watching the sun
set and rise
holding your scent
in the cup of my hands
white-knuckled

and the tears
through the tears
and gritted teeth
in the wind
your smell
the only thing
worth living
worth breathing

for a while
we are one
in between
empty spaces

I as another

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..." Mein Weltbild, 1934 (Trans. The World As I See It, 1935)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Nunquam said this

"Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion that fulfills those conditions." God and My Neighbour (1903)

Robert Blatchford, journalist and author (1851-1943)