The Days That Weren’t

The sun spilled in through the window like a guiltless intruder, 

its golden fingers prying open 

a world he had no wish to enter. 

The alarm did not ring—it accused, each note a gavel striking 

the silence he had tried to drown in. 

He lay there, 

a body folded like unread letters, and the weight of rising 

felt heavier than the sky. 

Noise—so much noise. 

The rustle of time, 

the machinery of the living world, grinding against his quiet collapse. 

He remembered the faces— 

not with love, 

but with the ache of expectation. He remembered laughter 

like echoes in a room he no longer entered. Tasks lined up like tombstones— things to do, 

though the soul that once desired them had long since wandered off 

and left no forwarding address. 

Even thought felt cruel, 

like walking barefoot 

through broken mirrors. 

Each breath 

dragged up from a well

he no longer believed had a bottom. 

And joy— 

that radiant betrayer— 

burned his eyes. 

It paraded outside his window, 

shameless, alive, 

while he turned to ash beneath the sheets. 

So he surrendered, 

not to rest, 

but to retreat. 

Sleep swallowed him 

not like a blanket, 

but like quicksand. 

And when the curtains shifted again, 

two days had vanished, 

stolen like coins under riverwater— 

unreachable, 

yet heavy in the knowing. 

-by nolonger