Every time I close my eyes I am swallowed by a place that feels like it exists only for me, a paradise that is dark and endless, filled with shadows that move like memory itself, carrying the weight of everything I have loved and lost, everything I have wanted and could never hold.
No one compares to the echoes that linger here, the shapes and faces that appear just at the edge of thought, familiar but untouchable, pressing against the soft walls of my mind, refusing to leave even when I try to look away, even when I try to forget.
There is no remedy for what stays behind, no medicine strong enough to quiet the repetition of moments, the soft gestures, the words spoken in passing that cling like silk around my heart and do not let go, no matter how much time passes or how much I try to turn away.
Your face plays across the landscape of this dark paradise like a melody I can hear even in silence, a tune that rises and falls, trembling and persistent, haunting me in the way only something impossibly beautiful and impossibly gone can, carrying both the sweetness of desire and the ache of absence at the same time.
I cannot leave this place, and I do not want to, because in its shadows I feel alive, I feel memory, I feel longing, I feel the fragile, impossible beauty of all the things I cannot have but cannot stop wanting, and even if it is painful, even if it consumes me, it is mine, and it is everything I know, everything I need, everything I have ever felt.
Eulogy
This poem was inspired by Lana Del Rey’s song Dark Paradise. I wanted to explore the feeling of longing, memory, and quiet ache that the song evokes, turning it into a reflection on how certain emotions can linger in the mind like a place you return to again and again. Writing this piece was a way to give life to those persistent, haunting feelings and honor the beauty in their complexity.
