A poem
In the dim and desolate abode
a world shrouded in perpetual gloom,
days, like spectral phantoms,
drift by in a haunting procession
in the shadow of affliction.
Each morn, the mournful tolling of solitude,
a prisoner of flesh condemned
to a life of estrangement from humanity.
The leper roams the barren landscape of existence,
every step a lamentation upon the earth.
His visage, a macabre mask of decay,
repels the gaze of those who dare to behold it,
for it bears the cruel imprint of his malady.
In the hollow chambers,
sorrow reverberates through the corridors of his heart.
Amidst the sepulchral stillness
there is solace in the company of shadows,
for they are kindred spirits in their silent suffering.
Flickering candlelight casts silhouettes upon the walls,
to mimic the dance of tormented thoughts.
In this desolation, he is both actor and audience,
enacting a tragic pantomime of despair
for an audience of none.
Existence is a cruel riddle,
from which there is no escape.
A spectre condemned
to haunt the margins of society,
an outcast from the living.
Life is a testament
to the inexorable march of time,
a chronicle of anguish, etched
upon the parchment of his withered flesh.