THE NEWS

 THE NEWS

When a friend dies,
the river forgets its salmon.
The bright bodies that once flung themselves
against the current, desperate for home,
simply do not come.
The water runs thin and clear
over stones that expected the old silver commotion.
Nothing stirs.
That is the first silence.Experience promises nothing.
It only teaches the bones how to carry weight
a little longer,
how to walk when the knees would rather kneel.
Endurance is not victory;
it is the slow, stubborn refusal to lie down
while the debt is still unpaid.A hunger moves in,
not for bread but for the sound of that voice,
the particular tilt of a laugh.
It eats the daylight in small, precise bites
until evening arrives early, astonished at itself. When the body is finally dragged to bed,
a tooth that has ached for years
is suddenly, mercifully pulled.
The socket throbs clean and empty,
a red cave where something used to live.
That is the shape absence takes:
a sore, perfectly fitted gap
no filling will ever match.Pain and fatigue wrestle in the dark.
Pain is loud, theatrical,
it screams and demands witness.
Fatigue is quieter;
it simply closes the gate
and leans against it from the inside.
Fatigue always wins.
The eyes surrender,
the room tilts,
the world goes mercifully out.Yet at the first blade of dawn
pain is already awake,
faithful as frost,
slipping back into the marrow
with the patience of something that knows
it has the rest of time
and intends to use every minute.