The Silence Beneath

("We spend our lives preparing to live, only to discover the living was the preparation.")

It's too dark in here.

Once I called ninety square metres my home,
Yet now eight are more than enough.
The mansion I built with restless hands
Has yielded to a chamber silent and rough.

The wealth, the titles, the paper notes,
The treasures I guarded with desperate care—
None could purchase another breath,
None could rescue me from here.

I fought for fortunes,
I raced against time,
Only to learn
Neither was ever truly mine.

Now memories arrive
Like echoes through stone;
Faces, laughter, quiet embraces—
The riches I should have owned.

A child's laughter.
A lover's smile.
A mother's voice.
Moments that made existence worthwhile.

I chased appearances,
Costumes stitched from pride.
Beauty, status, race, and colour—
All have withered side by side.

Barely any flesh
Still clings to these bones.
The mirror has forgotten me;
The earth now knows me alone.

I wonder of Heaven.
I wonder of Hell.
Or perhaps this very planet
Was Heaven we desire…

There was life.
There were forests.
Rivers singing over stone.
Blushing flowers after rain—
Yet I never felt it all.

Love and Music all around
Hope bloomed in every season.
Perhaps Heaven was never absent—
Perhaps I forgot the reason.

What made it less than paradise?
Greed...
Comparison...
Endless desire.

Questions gather
Like dust upon my grave,
Yet none can alter
The choices that I made.

Now darkness is my companion,
And the scent of dampened earth.
How strange to understand life's value
Only after its last breath.

My greatest sorrow
Is not that I have died.
It is remembering
How little I truly lived.

The words I never spoke.
The hands I never held.
The sunsets left unseen.
The forgiveness left withheld.

For every choice I hurried,
Every favour bought or owed,
I wish I had offered kindness
Instead of adding to my load.

Belongings were all I chased;
Ownership became my creed.
Now I own nothing—
Not even the ground beneath.

I hushed so many voices,
Certain silence meant peace.
Now endless silence surrounds me,
And I beg for one sound to break its release.

Hope...
Craving...
Grave...

Three words.
One journey.

The material world
Built towers from dust,
While every language ever spoken
Falls silent beneath the crust.

The bottles are empty.
The laughter has ceased.
The fire has frozen.
At last...

Rest in peace.

Or perhaps—

Piece by piece.

I hear distant prayers
Drifting through the wind.
Footsteps come.
Footsteps leave.

Flowers bloom above me.
Seasons quietly pass.
The world moves forward
Without looking back.

Everybody is gone.

And here beneath
It's still too dark....