NEPHART.COM

The emptiness you feel when you fall in love
and the emptiness you feel after breaking up
are not the same.

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The emptiness of a hopeless romantic,
and the emptiness of belonging
to a one-sided love association
are not the same.

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The emptiness of sitting alone with a coffee,
watching a couple laugh at another table,
is its own kind of silence.

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The emptiness when people don’t greet you back,
and the emptiness when you say “thank you”
and they look through you
as if your words never existed
are different wounds.

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The emptiness of being an outcast,
of being a crow
at a party thrown by seagulls,
feels like wearing the wrong sky.

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The emptiness when you try to speak
and they walk away
changing chairs,
tables,
even their sight—
as if distance can erase you.

——————————

The emptiness when someone listens,
all ears,
but their soul is buried
inside their phone.

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Among all these emptinesses,

there is one more—

the emptiness I feel when I meditate,
when I try to let the past dissolve
like a fading reel,
no worries about the future,
just the present—

tranquil,
like waves breathing,
like energy flowing within—

and somehow,
that emptiness
does not consume me.

It transcends
all the others.