The hollow drum of rain upon the pane,
A ceaseless dirge upon a city’s soul,
Mocks the scant warmth within this tired domain,
Where shadows writhe and memories take their toll.

The clock, a metronome of hollow ticks,
Measures the vast expanse of empty days,
Sunlight, a stranger, paints the dusty bricks
In pallid hues, then fades in twilight’s maze.

Through cobwebbed windows, streets unfurl unseen,
A tapestry of lives where laughter strays,
A phantom life, a world that might have been,
Achingly distant on these lonely ways.

Each creak of floorboard, sigh of aging wall,
Echoes the hollowness that fills the room,
Ghosts of ambitions dreamt before the fall,
Haunt the stale air, dispelled by no perfume.

Perhaps a phantom knock upon the door,
A voice that calls, a face I long to meet,
But silence reigns, as ever, and the floor
Bears witness only to my shuffling feet.

The hollow drum resumes its mournful beat,
A lullaby of solitude’s despair,
In this, my purgatory, incomplete,
A life unshared, a burden none can share.