It is then...

In the middle of a quiet afternoon 
or in the sleepy corners of the night – 
it is then that it hits. 
It is then that it hurts. 
The loneliness. 
The hoodless-ness. 
The ties that bind 
surely are most slack then. 
Where are they 
when the heart stretches and stretches 
and yet finds that that which fills it 
is not the intangible belongingness; 
it is the more the tangible emptiness. 

Emptiness. 
Pervasive emptiness. 
The flaccidness of the empty corners of the heart. 
Kinfolk were never kin, you see. 
Shattered dreams. 
Uprooted to a distance, 
the short thread of dreams 
hardly withstood the pull and push and pinch. 
Loneliness of hearth. 
Loneliness of frailty. 
Begets loneliness of kinlessness. 
Wandering heart forever. 
Anchored in bravado. 
Moored in the gloating of meaningless triumphs. 
The pull of façade did unmoor it. 

Wandering heart. 
Pining heart. 
Seeking heart. 
Painful beyond measure. 
Thus did the heart grow. 
Thus did the heart shrink. 
And yet the emptiness loomed. 
Cynical heart. 
Questioning heart. 
Tallied up with chary mind. 
A moat. 
More like a swamp. 
The emptiness turned jellysludge. 
Trapping. 
Mocking. 
Laughing. 
Loss. 
Utter loss. 
Pervasive loss. 

A quick silver flash of fulfilled life. 
Washed away in the tide ever rising. 
Mourning heart. 
Wasting heart. 
The beats vary. 
Dunn-dunn-dunn. 
And then that’s all. 
Swamp conquering. 
Failing heart. 
Clutching heart. 
Fate beckons still. 
Quickening beats. 
Tired beats. 
Pleading beats. 
Another chance. 
Life is for once. 
Live it or fail it. 
Failing, falling.  
The falls are near. 
Drowning. 
Gasping beats. 
Final stand. 
Feeble. 
Failed.