Nothing

First published in Modern Literature, July 2018

“I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

How the feeling of emptiness devours

and takes me in

like an empty nest

and a hole in the ground

an empty den of the fox

with just loneliness gazing around

an unclaimed body

lying in the morgue..sleeping

without the

rush to being claimed or otherwise

Oh! how the  emptiness seeps and seeks me

with the stories of yore

with phantom pain filling my pores

An old abandoned hut

covered with vines and creeps

in the middle of the farmland

waiting to be lived in

a beautiful nursery with

matching color crib and that mobile

tinkling to the sound of desertion

and those

patterned unused blankets

folded and tucked neatly

left in the pile

in the corner

to be donated

so it can be forgotten

Bearing a load of a heavy heart

a heart empty

scraped and scratched of any emotion

Uninhabitable

not good for any more use

No sun

No sunlight

and the shadows  are empty

with nobody behind

A close look at my palms and

those lines have left me.

Oh! how the feeling of emptiness

fills and devours

everything in me.

–Megha

Picture Credit: Self