The Shadow Raven

Once upon a midnight electric, while I wandered, lost and hectic,

Through corridors of thought and smoke, my soul adrift, frantic, hectic,

Over screens that flicker pale, over shadows that inhale,

I paused—

A tapping at my window, insistent, delicate, surreal.

“Just the wind,” I murmured, “or perhaps a trick of tired eyes,”

But the tapping grew sharper, echoing truths I dared not recognize.

And there, perched on my windowsill, black as an empty memory,

A raven—no ordinary bird, but a messenger of obscurity.

Its eyes glimmered like wet coal,

Like the pulse of forgotten tales in my veins.

“Prophet,” I whispered, “or phantom of my own despair?”

And it tilted its head,

A gesture human and alien,

As if it had read the unwritten scripts of my mind.

“Nevermore,” it said, or I imagined it said,

Or the word fell from the walls themselves,

Carving deep lines across the canvas of my restlessness.

Each echo struck a chord of fear,

A note I recognized,

A chord that hummed: you cannot escape your own shadow.

I tried to reason, tried to laugh,

Saying, “Surely, this is nonsense, a trick of night’s cruel play.”

But the room grew smaller, tighter,

The walls breathing in rhythm with my pulse,

And every reflection in every mirror

Gave me back the same hollow gaze,

Haunted, hollow, waiting.

“Tell me, shadowed one,” I demanded,

“Is there balm for the heart that refuses to forget?”

And it fluttered its wings, vast and ink-black,

A storm of feathers against the dying candlelight,

And it said again,

“Nevermore.”

In that single word, a thousand histories unfurled:

Memories of loss, of love unspoken, of nights spent counting the ceiling cracks.

The clock ticked, louder than reason could withstand,

Each second a drumbeat of inevitable truth.

I realized then—

This raven was not merely a bird,

But the embodiment of memory,

Of grief crystallized,

Of the things we try to lock away,

Only for them to tap softly at our windows

When we are most alone.

I pleaded with it, voice breaking,

“Is there solace? A light beyond the midnight storm?”

But the raven remained,

Black wings folded, eyes unflinching,

A sentinel of the mind’s dark corridors.

And it whispered in silence,

“Nevermore.”

I rose, yet felt rooted to the floor,

A prisoner of my own reflection,

A prisoner of the shadow that clung to me

Like mist to morning glass.

Outside, the world carried on—indifferent, vibrant, alive—

Inside, I remained with my midnight confidant,

The raven,

The eternal echo of all that I cannot release.

And so I sit, night after night,

Listening to the whispers in the dark,

Watching the shifting shadows,

Feeling the weight of what cannot return,

And the raven waits,

Perched forever on the bust of forgotten hope,

And I know

That its word is the truth of me,

And perhaps of us all:

Nevermore.