echoes

hope is a black hole
offering only echos
to the empty words i speak
in return for a glimpse
of the expanse and depth
of living as one among so many

knowing the answers before i ask
as an exercise in assuring myself
that i still live
despite the silence around me
gripping my heart in a cold embrace
of desolate obscurity

i see no light, as i chose not to focus
on the prism of colour available to me
for shadows reach me deeply
as they pull me down to my place
of comfort and solitude among the living
i ignored, in passing them as a corpse