Somewhere far along this road he lost his soul


I am a haunted house with window-lungs drawn—
the cobwebs remain but the ghosts are gone.
I tried to lure them back with pieces of my soul,
but they said they chose death over my too-empty breath.

Words are beginning to taste foreign to my lips
and I drink from old literature with desperate sips—
searching and searching between the tangled lines
to free a single thought that I didn't know was caught.

What does one believe when nothing seems real?
How does one love when she's forgotten how to feel?
Seized by sudden panic, I reach for my heart—
but just as I'd guessed, there was no organ in my chest.