Echoes of the Forgotten Asylum by Olivia Salter | Poetry

Echoes of the Forgotten Asylum

By Olivia Salter

In the Asylum’s clinging dark,

Mad silhouettes ink fading screens,

Figures smudged on shrinking, splintered scenes.

Their hollow depths reach thin and bare—

Lank shadows clawed like brittle branches,

Empty eyes once bright in life, now faint as mist.

The grave-smell sharp from freshly turned sod,

And deeper down, the damp of forgotten rot,

Hangs heavy with each smothered breath.

Their laughter strains—quiet shadows, cracked and thin,

Once dreams, now dust within these walls.

The Thumbless Man wrings air that remembers pain,

Fingers curling ‘round what he’ll never grasp again,

While Rabbit Woman creeps, wrapped in trembling care,

Threadbare, sewn with frantic eyes,

Haunted by fears alive even here.

The Emperor’s proud shade presses on, bound for far-off lands,

His cloak a faint blur, frayed by forgotten tales.

Trapped within walls they’ll never escape,

Ghosts dissolving to threads, pale on pale.

A rasp of bone on stone—

The empty scrape of what lingers still,

Figures forever lost, their remnants thin,

Echoes in this house that breathes their sin.