Some days the darkness settles in,
a quiet, slow, insidious sin.
It does not rage or strike or shout,
it simply dims the whole world out.

It gathers somewhere in my chest,
a vacant ache that will not rest.
A hollow carved beneath my skin,
an empty room I carry in.

Not grief alone, nor simple pain,
but something spectral in my brain.
A desolation without name,
a silent absence without flame.

I search for joy and find a trace,
a fading echo, empty space.
The things that once could make me glow
feel distant now, like fallen snow.

And sleep becomes a soft retreat,
a place where thought and silence meet.
No memories there to reappear,
no sudden ghosts to draw me near.

But then a sound, a road, a phrase
can resurrect forgotten days.
A minor thing, a fleeting spark,
and suddenly I know the dark.

It opens like a hidden door
to rooms I thought I knew no more.
The past returns without a sound
and pulls me slowly underground.

That is the cruelest irony:
to think at last that I am free,
then feel one fragment, small and slight,
eclipse an entire field of light.

I am exhausted by the weight
of absences that reverberate.
By shadows that refuse to fade,
by every phantom memory made.

Yet somewhere past this endless gray,
I know there must remain a day.
Some mornings offer only haze,
some burn too bright against my gaze.

Still I keep searching through the night,
still turning eastward toward the light.
Because beneath this vacant part,
something tenacious guards my heart.

A pulse.
A spark.
A quiet flame
that darkness has not learned to claim.

And even hollow, even scarred,
I keep believing light is hard
but not impossible to find.

So I keep turning
toward the shine.