December tenth stares from a wall,
At a girl with night-colored hair and
Eyes the shade of a twilight
That blurs purple into the darkness.

The girl looks out
At the blurred edges of this night’s snowflakes,
Falling softly past the windowpane
And down to empty streets below.

It has been more than a month since her birthday,
Her escape from fourteen
That twirled around the clock
A hundred or more times before
Finally stopping.

Maybe not a hundred times,
It was only one month
Repeating again and again
With thirty days of sunshine and one of rain,
Only one of rain.
Madoka always dies on rainy days.

A teacup clatters,
Not quite the clinks of shattering glass,
But startling all the same.
The awakened girl looks into
Kind eyes and golden curls left free to spill over a friend’s shoulder.
Still intentional in all movements,
The golden girl continues setting up the rest of that midnight’s meal.

Tiramisu melts upon tongues as
Two friends sit in silence,
And two survivors let their thoughts soften with the disappearing cake.

The quiet reigns,
Until the twilight girl leaves
With the waking of dawn’s light.
A soft “thank you” drifts with the snow behind her
While unnumbered days rise up ahead,
Forever blocking her sight of what’s to come.