I Am Drawn to Decay. I Am Attracted to the Old and Abandoned and Dilapidated

Old and broken things

Photo by Ben Cliff on Unsplash

I have a fascination with antiquity. I am drawn to that which is aged and abandoned, decayed and damaged, forgotten and left to rot.

I have an affinity for old cemeteries, old abandoned buildings, old objects, old books, old people.

I sense the ghosts of those who once owned an old object, or lived in an abandoned house, was a student in an abandoned school, and the spirits of those who lie in the ancient gravestones that mark the graves of those who now have now lain six feet under for decades, yea hundreds or maybe thousands of years.

It is because I know that each one of them has a story, perhaps many stories.

This is why I like to visit museums. I don’t just see objects in the glass cases left behind by the dead. This is why I like to visit old forgotten cemeteries. I don’t just see the grave markers, but I see the lives of those who once danced and sang and cried and suffered and fell in love. I feel surrounded by their stories and their voices.

I want to ask them who they loved and who they hated and why. I want to ask what kinds of things made them happy and what broke their…