The Spaces Between Are Caverns Now

I thought I could fill the spaces.
I thought that time, gentleness, and persistence would fill the old spaces and breathe new glimpses of life into them.
But the truth is—the spaces are caverns now. The spaces hold oceans of memory.

The spaces make up more of me than what is sure and a statement.

The spaces are filled with perfume and the feathers of those evening birds. The spaces are filled with the whispers of the joy that once rang out in these caverns.

Sometimes I go into these spaces and paint on the walls, scattering moss and fern on the hard ground, trying to soften the spaces and mold them into a large breaking open of the heart.
And still, they remain echoing and empty—an uninviting space for the outside world, but a spartan haven for me.
I don’t wander out there in the world. I keep moving in the caverns, trapping old hymns into trickling rivulets of water.
The stalactites, my guides in the dark.

Some days I lie down in the cavern and tell my soul to accept that the cavern is OK.
The spaces are now forever.
The song, perfume, and flowers long gone.
Now an altar to a season of stillness.
A season of hibernation.
Not on the surface. But deep within the fascia of my heart.

Love has exhausted me.
Love now shows up in duty, in ecstatic prayer—but no longer in Eros’ devotion.
I am closing doors. Closing doors on the spaces and their caverns.

And lighting the small candle in the hearth that has shrunk.

Not good. Not bad.

Just a nook amongst the cathedrals of love, with no place to be put no more.