The Absolute Below

The tide is rising in the hollow of my chest, a heavy iron weight that never learns to rest. I’ve seen the empires crumble into salt and grey, I’ve watched the golden suns just simply turn away. There is no neon flicker here to mask the scars, just the cold, indifferent burning of the ancient stars. Step by step, the ground is giving way to air, a kingdom built on nothing, a silence we can’t share. The clocks have stopped their ticking, the gears have turned to rust, and everything we promised is settling into dust. I’m reaching for the edges of a world I used to know, but the further that I wander, the darker it will grow. It’s a long way down, a long way out, beyond the reach of mercy and the shadow of a doubt. The mountains are but whispers, the oceans just a breath, a dance between the living and the quietness of death. I’ve stripped away the colors, I’ve burned the maps I made, I’m standing in the clearing where the light begins to fade. No voices in the static, no ghosts within the hall, just the rhythmic, steady beating of the nothingness of all. Gravity is breaking, the tether’s gone at last, I’m drifting from the future, I’m bleeding out the past. And when the final candle flickers out and dies, I’ll find the absolute behind your hollow eyes. It’s beautiful and broken, it’s terrifying and still, a hollow made of starlight that the world can never fill. I’ve walked through valleys where the shadows have a name, and every single prayer is just a dying flame. The rivers here are frozen, the wind is made of lead, it carries all the secrets that the living never said. I’m pulling at the fabric, I’m tearing at the seams, to find the quiet center of a million broken dreams. No plastic, no pretension, no artificial glow, just the roots beneath the mountain and the heavy, falling snow. The giants are all sleeping, the birds have flown away, there is no dawn approaching to start another day. It’s a vast and empty temple, a cathedral made of glass, where the echoes of our footsteps are the only things that pass. I am the sand within the glass, the water on the stone, a king without a kingdom, sitting on a broken throne. My breath is turning into ice, my heart is slowing down, I’ve traded every jewel for a heavy, thorny crown. The horizon is a razor, the sky is turning black, and there is no power on this earth to bring the daylight back. Just the echo, just the stone, just the dark, and I’m home. I’m sinking into silence where the deepest currents flow, further than the anchors and the prayers of long ago. No more masks and no more faces, no more lies to tell the sun, the race is finally over, and the emptiness has won. It’s the peace of the abyss, the comfort of the cold, the only story left that hasn't already been told.