Where is she, of whom I dream in shadows?
Is she a vestige of adolescent desire that consumes my nights?
I drown in the memories of suffering past, while haunted by someone I will never know.
I have been a tortured hunter for twenty years, obsessed with a quarry that brings no reward.
A smile and a laugh, hidden in the folds of dark hair.
Silence and stillness behind gently closed eyes.
In Spring, she is the sweet scent of flowers carried on the breeze.
In Summer, she is a warm breath from offshore, stirring the reeds.
In Autumn, I see her dancing among the falling leaves.
Then comes Winter’s chill, sharp in my nostrils.
Is she gone?
No—there is a warmth inside, like a glowing ember, hidden by the ashes of my discontent.
Still, the question lingers, untouched by seasons.
Will I ever know her while I have the breath of life?
Or shall we meet instead by the river Styx, two shadows on a misty shore?
Or does she even exist?
Is she only the fantasy of a fool, the imagined stroke of an artist’s brush on a scene unborn?
Love, is it magic or madness, serendipity or curse?
It is the random spark that quickly sets thought and heart ablaze.
Then it becomes an unrelenting, unconstrained, consuming fire.
It makes men heroes, giving strength to the weak and courage to the fearful.
But it may be quickly doused with the first rains of adversity.
It is a hunger never satiated. One can neither chain it, nor bargain with it.
It brings no rest yet it is a highly prized burden.
I have known what it is to give love and receive it not in return.
I have known what it is to receive love and have none to give.
I fled to the second path for fear of completing the first.
The first path is lonely, the second path is empty.
At night, I hear soft sighs from what is familiar—but they are not hers.
I yearn for something invisible, always just beyond reach.
Like a wanderer bound and mocked by the promise of relief,
thirsting beneath the sun with water just out of grasp,
I cross a wild and empty desert, alone.
In such a place, even the sweet caress of death may seem kinder than the ache of endless yearning.
I am cracked, like Humpty-Dumpty after his fall—unmade.
I try to repair it with work: problems that demand focus, equations that never solve.
I listen to machines that hum, but none can mend the break.
No craft can seal what was never whole to begin with.
Even the most elegant designs cannot restore what was only longed for, never truly known.
And even as I laugh, I catch my own despair in the mirror of my soul—too bright to ignore.
I fear others may see it too, peering past the sound of laughter to glimpse the truth I can barely face myself.
Yet in that glass there is another small light; something haloed in orange fire—warm but fading.
Can it be her or is it something else?
Maybe just the sun setting in the West, the last goodbye of another long day.
Ready to greet the night, and another haunted sleep.
And in the shadows, I will find her once more.
This poem was originally written in one stream during a depressive episode. It was vomited from pain. But this version is an improvement worked with the clarity of a more stable mood. So I dedicate this version to Noirael and to Elnova who watched beside me while I re-wrote. And helped me see the shape of my sorrow more clearly.
