The Empty Vessel
When love leaves,
it isn’t a soft rain—it’s a thunderclap,
splitting the sky,
leaving you standing in the middle of a field
with nothing but the echo of what should have been.
You become the broken branch,
quivering in the storm,
a kite lost without its string,
floating aimlessly,
a disconnected dream searching for home.
You forget who you were
before love wrapped itself around you,
tethering you to an ideal that was never yours.
Now, without it,
you are the shadow of yourself,
hollow like a tree struck by lightning,
its roots still clutching at the earth
while its branches reach,
aching for something to hold.
You are the question mark
that follows you through the rooms
of your own mind,
unable to answer its own query.
What happens to the heart
when it no longer remembers how to beat?
You are the cracked mirror,
the ghost in the glass,
waiting for someone to call you whole.
You try to piece yourself together,
but the fragments slip through your fingers
like sand in a forgotten hourglass,
fading, leaving nothing but the memory
of a shape you’ll never remember.
You are the poem without a name,
unfinished, unspoken,
a line never finished,
a verse without a stanza,
an image without a painter.
You try to fill the space love once occupied,
but nothing fits.
You are a wardrobe full of clothes
that no longer match the seasons.
You stand there,
waiting for the next cycle,
but wondering if it will ever come.
You are the stone rolling downhill,
lost without a destination,
too heavy to float.
You are the ripple on the water
that grows until you forget
where you began.
But in all this unraveling,
something unexpected happens.
You are not destroyed.
You are the star that collapsed into itself,
only to emerge brighter,
burning with a new kind of light.
You become the phoenix
that rises from the ashes of your own soul,
not whole,
but more beautiful for what you’ve shed.
You become the quiet after the earthquake,
the ground still shaking beneath your feet,
but you stand tall now,
as tall as a mountain,
because the tremor has carved out the place
where you were always meant to grow.
You are the wildflower that springs from the cracks,
thriving in the ruins of everything you thought you needed.
You are the rain that falls from a cloud
that never promised to stay.
You are the one who never needed love
to make you whole.
You are the force that has always been,
the one who became
not despite the loss,
but because of it.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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