I am sorry that the night is long
but the shifting sands of time do not like to be rushed
they say “due is due, do with that what you will,” and the darkness drowns me in dewdrop tears
when dust has coated every layer of me, from skin to bone to do I still have a soul? then perhaps this charred body will find itself buried for the final time
I am sorry that the night is dark
but the flames have fizzled out and all that’s left is ash clogging my eyes, my mouth, my throat
the sand rushes in when I breathe and I used to wonder why it’s so eager to escape its home until there was nothing but bone and blood and unburied bodies in mine
the crumbling ash slithering about might have once been a life
might have once been mine
I am sorry that the night is alive
the sand scuttles up, presses in, and I still don’t want to know what it’s thinking as it’s sinking and drinking in everything I used to be
I’m one of them now, a single grain of sand, and I’m being pulled into the sea of cold earth
the stars say it’s not real and of course it’s not real, nothing that mattered is real anymore
but the stars look a lot like ash
I try to blink them out of my burning eyes but time does not like to be fought
I am sorry that the night is winning
familiar guilt sinks into my chest as I do the ground
phantom dust seeps in, seeps down, seeks a home in the emptiness of my chest
it fills my lungs until I can’t breathe and I don’t even bring myself to try
the sand is softer now, the sky is blurring now, the dunes submerging me have become something unfamiliar
I soon realize it’s mercy and feel a fleeting sweep of youthful hurt that mercy is something I have never known
I suppose, and time seems to agree, that it’s fitting I drown in all the people—all the grains of sand—I couldn’t save
I am sorry that the night is over
