Empty Rooms

Of all the rooms inside the house inside my heart,
I hate the empty ones the most.
I hate their perfect acoustics,
smooth-paneled walls vibrating with the beating of my heart,
each beat sending echoes down empty corridors,
chasing themselves like the memories of
old friends no longer playing there.
I hate that the sound of my poetry is the only music here,
its occasional self-loathing and contemplative disdain.
And I hate how much I love that sound,
the soft, sweet caress of my pen on paper,
the thoughts yelled loudly against these walls,
thrown against them like unwanted china,
chiseled into them with expert precision - the morse-code of my heart beats -
encapsulated so quietly and soothingly into the pages of my journal,
the only constant friend that sits beside me
in these empty rooms,
when all the other lives and loves have fled.