"Hell is the emptiness in this home..."

Hell is the emptiness in this home. What's worse -

nothing moves among the inanimate shapes.

Although you're alone, you instinctively close

the door out of fear that the dog could escape.

Emptiness, such that it shrinks the structure,

collapses the ceiling and draws the walls in.

You are confined. Neither rapture nor rupture

threatens to yank your soul through your skin.

Emptiness, devoid of all errands and hassles,

but somewhere, - where you are currently not, -

your life continues, - your daughter builds castles

in the warm, golden sand and eats apricots.

Later, they'll feast on lobster and surely smother

the meat in warm butter. They'll drink white wine.

Birds will sing for them, and butterflies flutter,

and the sun will sink to accentuate time.

Here, the whiteness of walls rejects your gaze.

There, the breeze is cooler, the water is warmer.

Emptiness is their absence, and in their place -

the deluge of silence from every corner.