POETRY

Melting Midnight

Life estranged

Midnight Rain — Photo by Michael Olsen on Unsplash

Long days
spiral a sideways gaze
an elongated phase
while I am lost to spades
of a life estranged
inside a mind on fire
ruminating thoughts
washed and wasted
in the weather
of navigating the waiting
for the days of dawn

The day
when clocks
seed their strikes
from bleeding stars
penned from inky skies
while I stand affixed
cemented inside
this antiquated cocoon
but I’m still in startled skin
falling into patterns
swirled from ancients
and cascades of coagulated haste

Seems I’m my own about-face
I haunt my blunted bones
from rickety heels to splitting heads
before reaching out
to embrace chilled memories
that line Earth
with the last embers
of numbered grace
elegantly encased
circling the ones left for dead
while my dreams remain stuck in sunrise
we live headless lives

Days circle
around amnesiac nights
I forget myself
I’m woven from pain
walking barefoot
grounded in blame
poached by barbed wire
yet parched in potential
to sip the blackness
from midnight rain
as the crowd disperses
into melted
pavement
gains

I’m drowning
outside
to inside
while the wind cackles
under lightning strikes
the…