What the Morning Costs

Golden light seeps like a secret over rooftops and whispered sins
Birds scream their small survival into air that doesn't care
I sit in the silence of morning like a woman learning to breathe again

Coffee warms my hands the way you used to, before you didn't
Steam reaches for a god who isn't listening
Beauty crouches here beside me, wounded but refusing to leave

Sunrise lingers like a question I keep asking the wrong people
My breath mingles with the sky and something in me loosens
The city stirs, an animal with one eye open, the other still dreaming of dark

A stubborn candle taught me this: even the longest night eventually spends itself
Sometimes I wish it wouldn't
Sometimes I sit in the almost-dawn and let myself want both the burning and the light

--Vera