1:28am and fingernails gripping deep enough to draw blood
I take a breath and make my choice
Clothes, shoes, keys
I leave myself at the door,
and step into the pause
The standstill blanket of cold deep dark
And its fresh and chilling embrace
My private escape
My eyes adjust to the night as I walk along the ritual path
The sounds of my shoes are all that fills the gaping maw of silent sky
Un-perceived, I disappear
The sidewalk bends and curves with the ever-moving moon
Around corners
Through neighborhoods
The shifting trees make curious shapes at the edge of my eye
2:12am and my wandering begins to take its toll
My legs ache and tire and ask for rest,
yet my mind still buzzes and stirs with painful contemplation
It isn’t yet time to turn back
3:01am and all at once I feel the gentle tug of sleep as I begin to circle back
Finally finding familiar streets and cul de sacs that seem like strangers in the flickering florescent lamplights
Left, right, and left again
I return to the door, and I dread what lies behind it
But want as I might to stay, it is time once more for me to shoulder myself
3:20am and calm again, my questions quelled
I wrap myself in the reminder of the silent chill of un-being
And as I breathe the first slow breaths of peace,
The sweetness of slumber meets me in between

Your eyes, though they’re so dark and endless,
Like they could swallow the world,
They catch the light
And become shimmering reflections of golds and coppers
A buried treasure made of sunlight
Your gentle voice ebbs and flows with the sea
It hides much
The force to make waves
Tsunamis
Hurricanes
And many secrets
Treasure
The dreams of fish
And sailor’s songs
And though I am charmed
By the light dappling on the surface
I find myself wading through the shallows
Searching for tiny things
Shells
Rocks
Anything that would give me a glimpse
The scarcest sight of the deep dark below
And then your sunset
All too fleeting
Is gone
And I am left to wonder
To hope
I might see it once more

After a night of rain
At the barest hint of dawn
When the sun emerges from the horizon
The east is filled with bright and warm light
And the hues of the world once again begin to show
When morning dew slips off of bright green grass
And the flowers just barely begin to unfurl
And the elegant fawns trot back to the forest
Where the flora will hide them ‘til dusk
A twilight duality
When the world around us has begun to awaken
But we still slumber
While the night’s peace and quiet still fill the air

Once, I had a ring
I wore it every day
To me, it was the most beautiful thing in the world
I loved it tirelessly
But one morning, when I went to slip it onto my finger,
it broke

I tried everything to put it back together
to fix it
I held the pieces close
I whispered my love for it and asked for it to be whole again
Nothing would work
Not for long

I gave up,
but I kept the pieces,
holding hope that one day I might be able to fix it
To have my beloved again

I cling to the debris,
even as it begins to weigh me down
and in my reluctance to move on,
I hold on to pieces of you

But only just enough.