It is early, early morning
And all around me shadows bloom black and brown,
Soft like velvet,
Quiet and smooth and comforting.
I don't believe I am here,
Right now.
In my mind the world changes
And it is a summer night
Just cooled from a warm day,
Balmy,
And the sky is sighing rain.
The heartbreak of a beautiful summer night consumes me.
Those are my favorite nights to really hurt on.
I have always been one for running away,
For midnight.
My sadness tonight is even warmer than that,
And I remember the islands,
The thunderstorms that rolled in every night from the sea,
The way they made the air thick and comforting.

We have our appointments,
Our daylight lives.
We have our laundry and our homework and our cups of coffee.
But that is not the reason for us.
We are not because of our days.
We are because of our nights-
The early hours we spend sitting up in bed,
Engulfed in shades of sepia darkness.
We are because of the things that keep us up nights,
And the tears we worship.
It doesn't come around very often, does it,
A wound you cherish?
But oh, when the world has gone to sleep
And that is all there is.

I am at temple, tonight,
Remembering your touch,
Your voice.
And in my head it is summertime,
And I am alone,
And the rain comes down in amber sheets,
Warm and cleansing,
And the thunder is so deep and low it grabs my heartbeat,
And the lightning doesn't flash so much as glow.
Tonight is a firefly night,
In my head.
They used to take refuge under the weeping cherry tree
In my back yard,
And I would too, on those rainy summer nights,
When sleep would not do,
Nor would the silent enclosure of bedroom walls.
Tonight I am out in a storm,
Wishing I was the same as it.
I have always craved the rain, I have always wanted to be just like it-
If only I could fall so free
And cry so easily
And sing so low and sweet,
And touch so gently that I seep inside.

I am trying to remember everywhere you ever touched me,
I am trying to hold in my mind the softness of you.
My skin is so much more beautiful since you have run your hands along it,
The change sinks down into me, to the core of me, and...
Have you ever longed for something so deeply
That you wept?
That
Is this.
That is you.

This is my gift to myself, this night, this moment,
This time in the dark
To remember every single detail of being close to you,
Every breath I felt you take,
Every heartbeat I loved the rhythm of.
This is my spirituality, this night,
This is the time that I allow that light you left in me
To swell and grow
Until it is running in my veins like rainwater runs down the treebranches
Until it drips, luminous, through my heart
And seeps out along my skin
And glows behind my eyelids and under my fingernails,
Painting golden rays along the walls.

It is a slow thing, and I sit long in the blackness
Just feeling.
The immensity of what you do to me
Spreads at my feet like a sea.
I see no horizon,
And just for now I give up my pretenses and drown myself in it all,
Take my urgent breaths of pure illumination,
And forget that I ever could panic without my head above the surface.
I will sink through the layers of myself
To find you tonight.

It is too warm a feeling for November.
Tonight is a firefly night,
A thunderstorm soft rain night.
Tonight is one of those nights
When the joy locked in my heart
Expands and crushes me like a lover's weight
And I love the way it presses my lungs.
Tonight, I breathe the air of another place,
Full of moonlight and rain.
Tonight I let you have me, in full, fearlessly,
Because you are not here to know that you do
Or to see the tears wash my cheeks with reflected light
And my eyes, full of a love I can't contain, close in reverence.

I'm falling backwards
And the air is rushing by
The light flickers
Like it's coming through treebranches
And I'm still falling
I'll twist my body
To see the ground
But there is none
It's a void
Of perfect blackness

there's a hot-time nevermind madling, and a girl with her back strapped to the wall, hair pushed to the side, knocking over shampoo bottles with the tips of her toes, one by one- into the too-cool water. and there's a ten year old song you've never heard before on the radio. and the treebranches she brings into her bedroom. and knowing she keeps a pocket knife in her jacket just for fun. wet white teeth. somebody loved me clean. the old fire wood. witch wire snares. walking in the dark. did this man find a woman under his kitchen sink. did he hold her with hands scabbed over like an old man's nose. up at ungodly hours of the morning.  we hold hands.   up like the electrical tape wrapped around her ****. we have no heroes. we try to hold conversations. we try to keep our cool.

When the sound of your parents talking about politics over powers your sense of right and wrong

And the sounds of treebranches clashing outside your window drowns out the song on the radio

Every strand of hair on your head makes noise against the next as you drag your fingers through in frustration

And your skin is tired and you can hear the sound each time you blink, each time your eyelids kiss

When your breath hits the glass of your mirror like a fist on skin, it leaves an opaque patch, like a bruise deeply spreading

When your words hang in the air like icicles and you wish they’d turn to steam because they’re stabbing everyone they can reach

And then when your feet stop clicking, padding and stamping, and your heart stops faltering, flying and clapping

And your lips part to let out a stampede of words all tripping over each other

That’s when
And only then
It’s time to switch the light off.