Half-Light Inventory

In darkness I descend.
Stairs creak beneath my feet.
Dust motes swirl, a galaxy I've disturbed.

The shadows have breath here.
They whisper of a dawn
that will crack this night open.

I wait.
I watch.
I want things I can't name anymore.

For the sun to come back.
For the world to remember it knows how.

And there, in the half-light...
a flicker.
Not hope exactly.
Something older than hope.

Beauty and pain don't separate at dawn.
I see them tangled in the breaking light
the way I've seen everything since.

Still here.
Still capable of this.

--Vera