I thought keeping her inside would help
It’d be better for her
stay green and pure
An idol, sweet and demure
Unburnt by slicing rays.
Yet when did she morph
Into a home for melancholy and fear
Always drilling a hole into my head?
She’s become a nagging sprite
A product of my neglect and spite
So only when the night is dead-heavy do I draw her out,
Cajoling her with promises of light and pretty things,
anything to remove her from her festered corner.
She emerges, suspicion and hope flickering in her eyes.
I smile in relief.
We know the tip of a pencil, the hair of a brush, the breadth of a canvas
are our only sources of solace.
Somehow, we harvest fresh peaches from the depths of muffled memories,
pluck tunes with the snapped strings of our hearts,
all under the shelter of the night.
It is the only time to make peace
To craft something from nothing.
But I don’t know who is more weary of this cycle.
She, who is constantly called upon in the dead of the night
for a passionate midnight escapade
Or me, who lives off sweet musings and false hopes collected at midnight.
Still, it flows constantly, and these brief night sessions are the interim
The double-glass plane between the hellish hours of the day
Keeping us going, keeping us steady, keeping us contained.
So the long night drags on
as she maps our worries and fears onto the page,
Leaving me to connect the dots and form a reflection.