I.
Night settles in a sepulchral silence,
the hours collecting like silt in the bottom of a well.
Sleep is somewhere beyond me,
on the other side of the dark
where shadows crowd the edges of perception,
contorting the furniture into silhouettes.
I do not rest.
I brace myself against the room,
each old wound and humiliation
marshalling themselves as adversaries.
I count my breaths,
pleading with the indifferent ceiling for reprieve.
Every disturbance—
the whine of the refrigerator
the tick of a distant clock
the house settling in its bones
is, to me, an omen.
Then, one by one, every regret pads out of the dark.
Some pacing.
Some simply watching.
II.
Dreams fracture,
dissolving into slivers:
a parent’s admonition,
the static hush of old televisions,
a hallway I recognize but cannot cross.
In this nocturnal tribunal I am both plaintiff and defendant, made to re-litigate every foolish trespass
memory can resurrect.
Somewhere between palpitations,
I become the sole custodian of my sanity
warding off the incursion of dread
with nothing but obstinance and
the lingering faith that morning will arrive,
however diminished I may be.
There is no catharsis,
only the slow exchange
of dread for durability,
surrendered in increments too small to notice
until suddenly you are emptied out.
III.
At last, the blackness thins.
The air slackens,
and I lie in the shallow glow of early dawn,
counting up what survived the night.
Was the struggle justified?
Survival is not always a salvation.
I persist, but something tender has slipped away:
a gentleness mortgaged for grit,
my quiet faith exhausted in the defense.
Outside, the world is anemic and gray.
No fanfare
but, for now, an accord.
For a moment, I am permitted
to relinquish vigilance
and reckon honestly with all I lost
to keep the darkness at bay.