Sometimes I feel like an empty hallway, like the color of life decides all at once to seep behind broken tiles leaving nothing but the path needing to be walked. I walk alone, my footsteps echoing for miles ahead and miles behind. Where did it go? I wonder. Where did the color go? Where are the people? Where is the sunlight? Where is the feeling that I'm part of something greater?

The sudden change of landscape makes my heart lurch, makes me hesitate and question, makes me fear. But soon, if things don't change, I'll get used to the bland scenery and walk on, devoid of feeling friends laugh around me, devoid of the warmth of sunlight, devoid joy and hope that it could ever be different.

But I'll walk on....I'll walk until my fingertips are frozen and bleeding from feeling the broken tiles of the walls that hem me in, until my legs shake from exhaustion and I stumble, until in utter desperation I sink to the floor and weep. No one can take too much darkness. No one.

Once, I was overcome by the harshness of the path I needed to walk. I know I will not return there, but the small glimpses into that possible darkness startles me out of my optimism. I'm left brooding, thinking and wondering. I thought I was going the right way.... did I miss a turn somewhere?