Poems Submitted by Our Readers

What should I do when the Empty sets in?
No one will tell me, because they don't understand.
Just puzzled looks, a suggestion for therapy
In  a helpful or caustic way.
How do I traverse this void 
When I have no bridges
How do I explain the feeling of nothing
To those who don't need to feel anything
Like explaining the color blue
To a blind man
How to explain the craving and hunger never fulfilled
To those who would eat anything
How to explain loneliness to those
Who would content themselves in the company of statues
How to explain the want of love enduring
To those who only know it as mere infatuation
To be acted upon when convienient
And thrown away at whim
How to explain this Empty
The aching reality
The hope for something new and different and wanted
That shall only take place in daydream scenarios
Those dream people who shall love me
Those dream promises that we will make
Those dream worlds we shall live in
For mere seconds
Until reality sets in
Destroying all in its wake
Crumbling castles, knights topple from their horses
And I 
The only survivor of that dominion
Am left to survey the devestation
From  this tower
Suddenly surrounded by a world not quite right
The denizens of which, never show their true feelings
I can sometimes see the Empty behind their eyes
See through love, see through promises
They drift away, tumbled on wind, like cutout dolls
Like their words were never spoken
I never touched them
They say
My fingerprints, almost imperceptible blemishes
Our conversations forgotten 
I am but a ghost in their world, from a time of truth
Truth  and love, they don't care to know
I am so lost and lonely
For want of a kindred spirit
Soon I shall become totally empty
Too


Leslie Smith