Villainized

It Can't Rain All the Time

I am dead

have been for years

a whisper of what once was

a shadow flitting through the corridors of time

I am a shell

the brittle facade of existence

cracked and hollow

echoing the laughter of ghosts

and the sighs of forgotten dreams

Now

I'm a puppet

strings tugged by unseen hands

set to auto pilot until the curtain call

a marionette of memories dancing to rhythms muted

the heartbeat a distant drum fading as the spotlight dims

I am a husk

an empty vessel adrift on a sea of silence

the end of this show called life

where the applause echoes not

and the stage is littered with the remnants of wishes left unspoken

Nothing;

the last thought and emotion bow out

drained into the ether

where hope once flickered

now a mere footnote in a tragic play

I am empty

a canvas bleached by the sun

the colors bled out

the brush abandoned

waiting for the final act

for the curtain to fall

for the lights to extinguish

and the audience to scatter into the void

In this silence, I reside

lost

yet somehow free

a specter of my own design

unbound from the weight of what I was

a testament to all that is missed

and all that shall remain-

the echoes of a life that dared to breathe