The Empty Hallway

There are days in which I long for those soft petals,
fluttering

so delicately in the wind. Poisoning the air with their scent. Drowning us in the perfume of roses. It's stench soaked into our skin, our eyes, our clothes.

Our everything

Rarely I dirty my thoughts with the laughter that filled the air.

The laughter that fills our hearts and minds with unruinable joy. We all laugh, like a virus it spreads over our bodies and minds. Our laughter takes the shape of the melodies in the air, the flute, or our own in our heads. Everything feels so in tune, so free. Our laughter feels as though it shapes the very molecules around us to be more joyful.

Everything is perfect.

Everything is safe.

Every day I long for such impenetrable safety, and some days I feel as though I need to feel that poisoning joy again. I hold an impossible memory in my head. I chase it down an impossibly long and empty hallway. A hallway so empty and cold.

I can’t bear to run down it any longer.

But I do, I run and run and run telling myself the ending is around the corner.

I am going to drive myself mad.

Over this impossible memory. Over this impossible happiness. A mindless dream that I dreamt oh so long ago. One that I’ve told myself if real because if not what am I chasing? What am I wasting my life away on? It cannot be a dream.

I need it to be real.

I need it to be more real than anything else.

I need to be possible.

I need it be able to breathe in the scent of those awful petals. The suffocating scent of the salt in the air. The poisoning scent of every one of those awful perfumes

I need to see the blinding flashes from those perfectly ugly silk dresses, the beautiful glittering of petals in shades of bloodied red then bone white then disgusting pink.

I need to hear the tune of that worthless horrid flute, the ghastly chirpy laughter, the whispered conversations, and the sound of the ocean desperately trying to break in against that dreadful wall.

I need it to be real.

I need it to be tangible