A road ends abruptly, not unforeseen, perhaps predictable; perhaps even for the best. But so harsh. Sighs echo “it’s over, it’s over, it’s over, she’s now in the past”, in the place where, silently, the waters of the rivers Styx and Lethe cascade.

Are there caverns and lakes in the innermost recesses of a broken heart, places where, seeking to heal, one might withdraw and nurse a wounded soul? Places where, although healing seems impossible, oblivion might provide respite? Where introspection cannot enter and despair is lost, lost deep in boundless pits from which its haunting echoes can’t escape?

The polar opposite of love, what might it be and how might it be found? Not hatred or disdain, not if the love is real, but what then? What might the antidote for true love be, one that leaves intact what was but keeps it out of sight and out of mind, free of remembrance and regrets? A potion so profoundly dark that what was would seem as though it’d never been.

Sweet oblivion. Better than having loved and lost or never having loved at all. Sweet oblivion, in pits deep within hidden caverns where discarded memories go to die, free of echoes or colors or shadows. Nothing moving, nothing wakes, tears all evaporated. A place dreams dare not invade, nor hopes, nor memories, nor might-have-beens.

Caverns and lakes in the innermost recesses of broken hearts, tortured roads for tortured souls, arterial sclerosis of a sort, immortality’s self-ordained demise. How might one find one’s way there? How long might that sad journey take? What psychic costs would be involved? Sighs echo “it’s over, it’s over, it’s over, she’s now in the past”. The place where, silently, the waters of the rivers Styx and Lethe cascade.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2019; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia although he has primarily lived in the United States of America (of which he is a citizen). Until recently he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.