Standing outside, the cool night air breathes on my skin, and I can't help but feel myself open up to the night, trying to release all of the energy, emotion, and noise that's inside of me, screaming to be heard.
It's the nights like these that are the hardest for me. The beautiful, calm, and peaceful nights. A summer rain shower are also difficult, but for now, all I have is tonight.
There's something about the dark sky, the whispering crickets, and the unseen wind that pulls at the core of me. Everything contained inside of me starts to pull and claw its way out, and no matter how long or how hard it will dig, it will never reach the surface.
The night protects me.
It offers me a cover, a safety, that just surrounds me with blankets of comfort.
The night listens.
It's still, and hears everything I dare not say. The crickets distract any listening ear as my heart pours out its secrets and begs for relief.
The night heals.
I am taken away into a corner of the world that is mine, and only mine. I am alone to breathe, and the chilled air fills every cell in my body and replenishes what it can, offering what it can, and taking what it can.
The night rolls over and through me, opening me up and removing the walls I work so hard to build.
These nights... they heal and they haunt. I long for those I love, to hold and be held by warm, protecting arms. The night offers the empty whisper of a touch. I miss those I've lost, and the night gently reminds me that they no longer need me, though their memory still lingers in me, irreplaceable, quite unlike what I am to them. The night lets me feel everything while I wish the opposite.
It's on nights like these...
...that it feels as if everything I want and need...
...are just right there...
...right behind that thin curtain of black...
...and just as I reach out to touch it...
...I find that it was never really there in the first place.
I still remember those nights in the summer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I would look at my life and just wonder
Which trail I've taken and path I paced.
Hard to look at it all with a laughing face.
Still I had a taste
of the bitter and the sweet.
Watching Vera dance with a glitter in her feet.
Still remember the fierce fist that hit her in the cheek.
And those powerful tears of courage when she wouldn't take defeat.
All the talks we had trying to make a peace.
We learned from each other, taught me how to love to say the least.
Taught me how to really know instead of make believe.
How to keep pumping a heart that always aches and bleeds.
Her bellies of laughter taste like cake to me.
For those pearls of wisdom I would wait patiently.
And the wisest thing I've learned is that I'm not wise at all.
Without God I would fall,
live with lies and bawl.
But if I recall,
there was still light those summer nights.
The twinkle in those stars and her eyes were one alike.
The goodbye of the moon as the sun would come to light.
And I'd realize I spent a whole night trying to think of something right.
Yawn and my arms are still tired from the fight.
Yet I still had to jump and my spine would come to life.
Another day of breathing, sweating, and crying for the night.
So I can rest my head and think of all the fights.
How firm I would flex my fist and ball it up so tight.
How somehow I'd miss the punch, hit a wall, and bite
Down on my tongue, feeling dumb, for all my life.
It's been a helluva year, and I guess I miss my friends.
But it's all over. There isn't a thing I should regret or wish again.
I can't pretend we'll be so close when we flip this switch again
I click my pen and prepare for when these devils will trick again.
In all those numb nights and nauseous days.
All those who lost their ways.
Eyes turned to gloss and glazed.
For bright hope what’s the cost to pay?
A night in summer like this to think
Where everything disappears with a blink?
And you can’t remember the love you felt.
how softly those hugs would melt.
Like sweet marshmellows, we’d smore in those open flames.
Forgetting all our broken shame
Just so we can hope again.
And how that’s all I choose to remember
When the sky turns dark and fires turns to embers.
I close my eyes and think of December
She’d hugged me for that gift, I felt her in the winter.
She let me hold her when she cried, she smiled for me when she could’ve died.
We stayed strong and fought our fights.
And laughed when we could’ve lost our life.
Now I sit here lost at night.
wishing I could wash the sight
Of the stains on our plain smiles.
Of the guilt on that shamed child.
Of the tears on our trembling cheeks
and speak the words that would send relief.
And then it all soon ends for me
As the sleep swipes past my eyes
Then all the laughter dies
and all the tears evaporate.
And I breathe rhythmically and my body stops to churn.
My dreams are hot and burn
away with the passing night.
And I see Vera in the flowers, picking them up in her hands
Scene switches, now I see her feet stuck in the sand.
The waves on the shore that come and lick her legs
And the sun shining bright on her hopeful eyes that would lift the dead.
And I see it all with my head.
And how I yearn to go be with her but I must sit instead.
Because this is just a dream
And soon the alarm screams.
And I shake off the night and enter another day.
Face splinters that cut away.
and I don't know what to say.
When I finally see her walking the other way.
and I smile and thank God I somehow got away.
I would love to see you and catch up but it might be a bummer.
I sit back and wish it was still a night in the summer.