The Quiet Ruin

The walls breathe with me,

slow… tired… cracking.

Unpaid bills curl like

dead leaves on the table.

My kids’ voices fade

like they were never mine —

memories dissolving

in the sink with the dishes.

My wife moves through the house

like a ghost I can’t touch,

two shadows sharing air

but never a heartbeat.

Every room echoes

with the man I used to be.

Now I’m just the outline

of a life collapsing.

Tell me—

do I burn out in a blaze,

let the sky swallow the noise,

let the world feel my exit

like thunder ripping the night?

Or do I drift away silent,

like rain sliding off windows,

disappearing so smoothly

they don’t notice I’m gone?

Which ending fits

a man already half-vanished?

Paychecks bleed thin,

and I bleed with them.

Hope rattles loose

like a bolt in the frame.

Cold meals sit untouched,

and so do I —

a stranger haunting his own kitchen.

Sleep won’t come.

It circles above me

like a vulture waiting

to pick clean the last of me.

Even God looks away

when I talk to the ceiling.

Maybe I’m speaking the language

of the forgotten.

But in the ruins,

some spark twitches —

a stubborn ember

refusing extinction.

Whispers rise from the dust:

“Not yet.

Not like this.”

Maybe the darkness

ain’t an ending —

maybe it’s a womb,

a place to rebuild

broken men from shadow.

I won’t combust for spectacle,

won’t vanish for convenience.

I’ll breathe in this night,

let it carve its lessons deep.

If I’m meant to go,

it won’t be as ruin —

but as something

that learned to crawl

out of its own grave.