{"id":582,"date":"2025-03-05T18:18:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T18:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/2025\/03\/05\/whispers-between-worlds\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T19:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T19:59:27","slug":"whispers-between-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/2025\/03\/05\/whispers-between-worlds\/","title":{"rendered":"Whispers Between Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

 When I set out to write “The Life of Phi” (coming April 22nd), I didn\u2019t expect to find a hidden poet inside me. But as I explored the themes of the environment, AI, and humanity, I found myself drawn to the voice of water as my narrator. Water became my storyteller\u2014fluid, ever-changing, and deeply intertwined with existence itself. While the book itself is not poetry, water’s perspective emerges at the beginning of each chapter in the form of a poem. The words spilled onto the page in a free-flowing form, refusing the confines of rigid structure. It was as if this voice demanded to be heard through poetry.<\/p>\n

This unexpected discovery stayed with me as I moved on to my next work-in-progress. I thought I could weave this poetic voice into the fabric of my new story, but it resisted. It belonged elsewhere, in its own space, with room to breathe. That\u2019s when I realized these poems\u2014this series I\u2019ve come to call “Whispers Between the Worlds”\u2014deserved to stand on their own.<\/p>\n

So here they are, each one a step through death, the afterlife, identity, and rebirth. I invite you to experience them as they were meant to be\u2014unbound, flowing, and waiting to be heard.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

WHISPERS BETWEEN WORLDS<\/i><\/h1>\n

Testaments
\nof Absence<\/h2>\n

Lawrence Nault<\/i> \u00a92025<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do not mourn my passing,<\/p>\n

For you know not who you mourn<\/p>\n

You may have known a version of me,<\/p>\n

A creation to meet the expectations,<\/p>\n

Of a society, a group, a person, a situation,<\/p>\n

But that version of me died already,<\/p>\n

Passing painlessly as it crossed the threshold,<\/p>\n

As I returned to my solitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I should have feared this moment,<\/p>\n

Planned and prepared for it,<\/p>\n

But when you don\u2019t know the person<\/p>\n

Who will occupy your soul<\/p>\n

When the sickle slashes down,<\/p>\n

How can you?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The mortal coils,<\/p>\n

That bound decades of pain to my soul,<\/p>\n

Have been shed,<\/p>\n

But has that pain?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The love, the empathy,<\/p>\n

That bound me to moments and people,<\/p>\n

Now released to the world,<\/p>\n

Where it can empower others<\/p>\n

with the energy it drained from me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was not a good man,<\/p>\n

I was not a bad man,<\/p>\n

I just was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I was, truly was,<\/p>\n

Eluded me,<\/p>\n

But will perhaps find me in the next existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My distance, and absence,<\/p>\n

From family and friends,<\/p>\n

Was not because I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Staying absent from their lives,<\/p>\n

Set them free from the weight of my wounds,<\/p>\n

Free from my burdens,<\/p>\n

From storms not their own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I leave behind words,<\/p>\n

Bound in leather and paper,<\/p>\n

That I hope will reach others<\/p>\n

Long after my passing<\/p>\n

Because if the books fall victim<\/p>\n

To the fires of time,<\/p>\n

And no voice speaks my name,<\/p>\n

To be carried on the winds,<\/p>\n

I will fade,<\/p>\n

And I will not have existed,<\/p>\n

At all.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The
\nTearing Away<\/h2>\n

Lawrence Nault<\/i> <\/span>\u00a92025<\/span><\/h4>\n

You see nothing,<\/p>\n

Yet you see everything,<\/p>\n

As life rips your soul<\/p>\n

From your already stiffening corpse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your soul pulls away easily,<\/p>\n

Anxious for the freedom,<\/p>\n

As you watch the moment of your birth,<\/p>\n

And continue to watch your life,<\/p>\n

The weight of the years lifted from the bindings of the
\nflesh,<\/p>\n

One by one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Until it binds,<\/p>\n

As you refuse to let a moment go,<\/p>\n

Those watching over the freshly stilled vessel,<\/p>\n

That contains that soul,<\/p>\n

Stare in shock, in hope, in fear,<\/p>\n

At the dead man\u2019s dance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You fight death\u2019s tug,<\/p>\n

You want to change that moment,<\/p>\n

Relive it,<\/p>\n

Do it right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You see the tears,<\/p>\n

Of the one you loved,<\/p>\n

And the one who loved you.<\/p>\n

You made the wrong choice,<\/p>\n

You always knew you made the wrong choice,<\/p>\n

But you can see it now,<\/p>\n

That 16 year old boy,<\/p>\n

Who exuded confidence,<\/p>\n

But had no belief in himself,<\/p>\n

So he moved on from others,<\/p>\n

Before they moved on from him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The pain you feel as death rends that moment from your
\nflesh,<\/p>\n

Is what you wish you felt then,<\/p>\n

So you would never make,<\/p>\n

That mistake again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Death continues his work,<\/p>\n

Peeling away your soul,<\/p>\n

Like a hunter peels the skin from his kill,<\/p>\n

No cruel intent,<\/p>\n

But a job to be done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each moment your soul clings,<\/p>\n

Desperate to rewrite the past,<\/p>\n

Fix it,<\/p>\n

You scream with a voice that can be heard by the gods<\/p>\n

But only passes them by into a silent void,<\/p>\n

As death uses its sickle,<\/p>\n

To sever the tissues of regret,<\/p>\n

That its strength alone cannot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A cold chill grips your essence,<\/p>\n

As that final connection from your mortal flesh,<\/p>\n

Snaps,<\/p>\n

Leaving your flesh to rot,<\/p>\n

And your soul to\u2026<\/p>\n

What?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then you feel the warmth,<\/p>\n

As your soul is lowered into the crucible,<\/p>\n

The heat applied,<\/p>\n

Letting the slag of your life,<\/p>\n

Rise to the top,<\/p>\n

The anger, the hate,<\/p>\n

The moments of cruelty and selfishness,<\/p>\n

Carefully ladled off the top,<\/p>\n

And set aside,<\/p>\n

Until all that remains,<\/p>\n

Is what was meant to endure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And as your soul rises,<\/p>\n

No longer chained by the weight of that slag,<\/p>\n

You look back at the pile,<\/p>\n

Death carefully set aside,<\/p>\n

Realizing there was so much more to you,<\/p>\n

But that small pile was a burden\u2014<\/p>\n

That could never let you be free.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/h2>\n

Adrift
\nin the Between<\/h2>\n

Lawrence Nault<\/i> <\/span>\u00a92025<\/span><\/h4>\n

The time,<\/p>\n

Between the then,<\/p>\n

And the next,<\/p>\n

Is as infinite as it is ephemeral.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My soul floats free,<\/p>\n

But the lightness is deceptive,<\/p>\n

The freedom unnerving.<\/p>\n

Without the weight of my world,<\/p>\n

The pain, the sadness, the fear,<\/p>\n

There is nothing to ground me,<\/p>\n

And I am at the whim of currents,<\/p>\n

Unfamiliar to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Battered about by other souls,<\/p>\n

Some racing higher,<\/p>\n

No longer needed to return,<\/p>\n

To a work of physical restraints,<\/p>\n

Others falling,<\/p>\n

Death unable to remove all the weight,<\/p>\n

And others wandering,<\/p>\n

Searching for the path back,<\/p>\n

So they can try again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

I recognize it,<\/p>\n

Been carried by it before,<\/p>\n

But in its pure form,<\/p>\n

Is a power that I am not sure,<\/p>\n

My soul can contain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Empathy,<\/p>\n

It still remains,<\/p>\n

a part of me,<\/p>\n

But it is a vast, empty space,<\/p>\n

Waiting to be filled by the pain of others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Understanding,<\/p>\n

An abyss that rests next to empathy,<\/p>\n

The between,<\/p>\n

Of empathy,<\/p>\n

And kindness and caring,<\/p>\n

The threshold meant to protect you,<\/p>\n

And others from you<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kindness and caring,<\/p>\n

I know these as well,<\/p>\n

Wallflowers waiting for their dance partners,<\/p>\n

To join in a ballet, a waltz, a tango,<\/p>\n

That lifts all participants,<\/p>\n

To a higher level.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not recognize this soul,<\/p>\n

It is too big to fit me,<\/p>\n

And too small to occupy my space,<\/p>\n

So as I drift,<\/p>\n

I familiarise myself with me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the moments of contemplation,<\/p>\n

In the currents of the river of souls,<\/p>\n

I understand,<\/p>\n

I was worthy,<\/p>\n

I was valuable,<\/p>\n

That fear and insecurity,<\/p>\n

Had filled understanding,<\/p>\n

Leaving little room to understand myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It bridged the abyss,<\/p>\n

Between caring and empathy,<\/p>\n

Letting pain in as I sacrificed myself,<\/p>\n

The false veil of understanding,<\/p>\n

Letting me believe I saw myself,<\/p>\n

When all I saw was fear.<\/p>\n

And I stood at the bottom of that abyss,<\/p>\n

The pain flooded in,<\/p>\n

Drowning me.<\/p>\n

Leaving me dead,<\/p>\n

Before my mortal shell knew it was already empty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beneath the river of souls,<\/p>\n

A sea of mortality,<\/p>\n

Husks not yet given life,<\/p>\n

Reach for a soul to occupy them,<\/p>\n

Am I ready to reach back?<\/p>\n

Or am I still waiting to be whole?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A
\nWhisper Calls Me Back<\/h2>\n

Lawrence Nault<\/i> <\/span>\u00a92025<\/span><\/h4>\n

I have watched,<\/p>\n

As souls have grasped,<\/p>\n

For the outreached hands,<\/p>\n

Of the husks below them,<\/p>\n

A violent transaction,<\/p>\n

As the husk and the soul struggle for control,<\/p>\n

The soul not always winning,<\/p>\n

The husk at times vomiting the soul back into the river,<\/p>\n

Choosing its own death,<\/p>\n

Over occupation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still,<\/p>\n

I have been tempted to reach out myself,<\/p>\n

But something holds me back,<\/p>\n

Is it still fear,<\/p>\n

That was so deeply embedded in my soul,<\/p>\n

Fire could not separate it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not want to hurt people,<\/p>\n

Even unintentionally.<\/p>\n

I do not want to bring sadness,<\/p>\n

To anybody\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not want to be a burden,<\/p>\n

On family,<\/p>\n

Friends,<\/p>\n

And people I care about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In death,<\/p>\n

And that time in between<\/p>\n

Now and the next,<\/p>\n

That has not changed,<\/p>\n

My distance, and absence,<\/p>\n

From family and friends,<\/p>\n

Is not because I don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

But I have no desire,<\/p>\n

To be the weight,<\/p>\n

Death must sort from their souls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not want the pain.<\/p>\n

I remember the pain.<\/p>\n

Always pain, in the end.<\/p>\n

I watch the pain as others are reborn,<\/p>\n

I hear the cries of pain from the world,<\/p>\n

I see the scars left behind on souls,<\/p>\n

After death tries to renew them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But there is a pull,<\/p>\n

A gravity that draws me back,<\/p>\n

To a mortal container,<\/p>\n

Or is it the weight still on me,<\/p>\n

That drags me down?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would return,<\/p>\n

If not for mortality,<\/p>\n

Free from the death grip of time<\/p>\n

I could learn, adapt,<\/p>\n

Find this soul,<\/p>\n

And sort the menagerie<\/p>\n

It has been assaulted with,<\/p>\n

Finding the real me,<\/p>\n

The best me,<\/p>\n

The only me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But mortality is a limit,<\/p>\n

And I have no desire,<\/p>\n

To repeat the process,<\/p>\n

Of death,<\/p>\n

So instead,<\/p>\n

I listen,<\/p>\n

To hear my name on the wind,<\/p>\n

And see if I still live.<\/p>\n

\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 When I set out to write “The Life of Phi” (coming April 22nd), I didn\u2019t expect to find a hidden poet inside me. But as I explored the themes of the environment, AI, and humanity, I found myself drawn to the voice of water as my narrator. Water became my storyteller\u2014fluid, ever-changing, and deeply intertwined…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Whispers Between Worlds - Lawrence Nault","description":" When I set out to write \"The Life of Phi\" (coming April 22nd), I didn\u2019t expect to find a hidden poet inside me. But as I explored the themes of the enviro"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,40,43,41,49,38,39,42,50,46,44,47,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-musings","category-blog-series","category-cold-imagery","category-creative-writing","category-existence","category-fragments-of-frost-and-fire","category-mortality","category-original-poetry","category-philosophy","category-poetry","category-standalone-works","category-time-decay","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencenault.me\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}