Page 5 of Us Dark Few

She didn’t have to count all the dashes to know that whoever occupied the cell before her didn’t last long. Khalani clenched the chalk tighter. She could leave something behind too. The faintest trace of energy to let the next prisoner know that she once was alive.

Khalani gazed at her parents once more before flipping the picture over on the stone floor.Maybe poetry was never meant to be calamitous. Such broken tragedies shouldn’t be breathed into existence, but it was her truth. Without a name, the only thing she had left was her voice.

Her trembling fingers slithered across the blank space as she bared her soul to no one.

You remember it

Can’t you?

The lighted whispers in the dark

When the hope in life

Wasn’t built to fall apart

You feel it

Can’t you?

The reverberations within

Collapse of dead wishes

Dreams adjourning before they begin

You hear it

Can’t you?

That silence once more

Louder than screams

Hearts dying like mine has before

You realize it

Can’t you?

Loss starts with your first breath

Either accept defeat with smeared eyes

Or smile when you encounter death

3

Emptiness has the fragility of feathers and bears the weight of mountains.

A high-pitched alarm resounded throughout the prison, and Khalani immediately sat up. She didn’t sleep. There came the point when her face dried up because no tears were left to cry. Devoid of emotion and energy, she lay on the floor the whole night, watching scenes of her old life play out on the stone crevices of the ceiling.

Rubbing her puffy eyes in exhaustion, she glanced at the steel bars sliding open.

“Roll call!” a deep, masculine voice yelled out.

Footsteps from other prisoners exiting their cells drifted to her. Remembering the guard’s words yesterday, Khalani shot to her feet and tentatively walked out of her cell. The bright lights were overwhelming, and she held a hand over her eyes.

“Psstt, hey!”

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