Nightfall
The sky bruises itself purple,
bleeding light through cloud-wounds
while I sit witness to the daily dying
of sun into shadow.
My coffee has grown cold again—
always growing cold in my hands
like love, like summer,
like the promises I made
to earlier versions of myself.
A moth beats desperate wings
against my open door,
drawn to light that will destroy her.
Don't go inside, I whisper,
it's a prison—
but she doesn't listen,
drunk on false salvation.
The air thickens with night jasmine
and the particular ache
of August ending,
that sweet melancholy
of seasons turning their faces
toward something I cannot name.
Cricket songs rise from grass
still warm with day's ghost,
their voices weaving through
the spaces between my ribs,
filling the hollow places
where longing lives.
I am small here
beneath the vast theatre
of stars emerging one by one—
pinpricks of light
in velvet vastness,
ancient fires burning
their way through darkness
to reach my upturned face.
Somewhere an owl calls
once, twice,
cutting through the cricket symphony
with blade-sharp clarity.
I think of all the secret lives
moving through shadow now,
following instincts older
than thought, than fear,
than this woman
learning how to sit still
in the breathing dark.
Night falls like silk,
pools in the hollows
of my cupped palms,
and I let it take me—
let it wash over skin
and memory and the tender places
where day's armor
finally falls away.
This is the hour
I remember who I am
beneath the roles,
beneath the masks—
just breath and heartbeat
and the wild knowing
that I am part
of something larger
than my small sorrows,
my careful plans.
The darkness cradles me
like a lover's hands,
whispers secrets
only night can tell,
and I listen
with every cell
of my wanting body
to the ancient song
of world turning
toward sleep.
-Artwork created in Photoshop and additional image-painting programs
-Poetry written by me
-both copyright to ©Stacy Stephens