The scent of emptiness swept through the hollow air like a deadly breeze,
A gust like a whisper, cold and bare,
It carried with it, faint and slow,
The scent of something lost long ago.
It drifted through rooms, abandoned, still,
Through spaces void of life or will,
Where light no longer dared to creep,
And all that was left remained endless sleep.
The walls once spoke of ardour and fire,
Of hearts alive with intense desires,
But now they crumbled, feeble and frail,
Their tales of love began to pale.
The scent of emptiness, it clung,
A sorrow born of broken things unsung,
Of merriments lost, of fleeting days,
Of shadows in forgotten ways.
What once was rich with scented blooms,
It now became a house of vacant rooms,
The echoes fainted, the aura so thin,
Wanderers felt the dark crawl deep within.
A withered rose left in a vase,
Its petals were brown, devoid of grace,
However, still the scent of old remained,
A ghost of what it once contained.
And as ghouls rambled through the dust,
They felt the weight of brittle rust,
The scent of emptiness, so sweet,
It pulled them closer and dragged their feet.
It chilled the skin, it clawed the mind,
With memories cruel and unkind,
A fragrance of despair and fear,
That pulled the soul ever near.
In every crevice, every fold,
The scent of emptiness grew bold,
It whispered through the cracks of time,
A lingering perfume of crime.
For once, these halls were full of life,
Of joy, of pain, of love and strife,
Now, nothing stirred but silent dread,
Where every dream was long since dead.
Yet something lingered in the gloom,
A presence watching from the room,
It smelled the sorrow on the breeze,
And watched as the shadows froze.
And in this emptiness, so vast,
The present faded, the future’s past,
For nothing lives, and nothing dies,
In hollow rooms where silence lies.
The scent of emptiness remained,
A haunting note, a whispered name,
And though the world outside may turn,
Inside, that scent will never burn.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
