Melancholy

What coils within this lifeless chest?

Not breath, nor pulse, nor need for rest,

But air gone foul, and thick with dread,

The scent of something long since dead.

I plead with silence, cold and vast,

It offers echoes from the past.

No voice replies, no meaning shows,

Just frost where thought no longer grows.

There’s something buried in my head,

A whisper stitched in threads of dread.

It shifts behind the walls of sleep,

And watches when I sink too deep.

Though youth still marks my skin in trace,

There’s ruin settled in its place.

I’ve walked through years not fully mine,

Each age repeating like a sign.

The things I loved I could not keep,

They fled like breath from mouths in sleep.

They vanished soft as winter light,

And left behind unending night.

Once I could feel with sharpened flame,

But now all passion burns the same.

No joy, no grief, no mortal ache,

Just numbness wrapped in slow heartbreak.

I drift through halls with hollow gaze,

Where time and reason twist and craze.

A figure carved from loss and dust,

Unmoved by memory, void of trust.

I dwell where lanterns fail to burn,

Where laughter rots and shadows churn.

No prayer, no promise leads me through,

Just silence soaked in ashen hue.

What name befits a thing like this,

That walks but knows no touch or kiss?

Not soul, not shade, not flesh or flame,

Just something left, without a name.

Reviews

[Neha agrawal]

Wow. This hit like a quiet punch to the chest.

It doesn’t feel like you’re trying to write something "deep" it feels like you're just trying to survive something. That numbness, the repetition of time, the feeling of walking through life without really being in it… yeah. I’ve felt that. A lot of people have, even if they don’t talk about it.