I rise each morning, early, to tend to needful, keening things that will not let me sleep. These lighter hours of the day will never feel the weight of the evening, the press of the night. They make promises no one can keep, and tell lies they never have to answer for. Quiet, they follow my careful feet across a floor that complains of age. Down, I slip. Soft, my touch on the rail. The light outside is new, curious, but I do not let it find me, not yet. I still want the comfort of the curtains, the thin cloth of separation. Behind them, something of the night still lingers, still tries to grasp at the hems of my clothes, my wrists, my hair.
I can ignore the hours at my heels, steal a few more moments to myself. This is all I have of myself—the dark and the silence. All too soon I will have to open the curtains, start the tea, hear the stirrings of the day awaken. It presses on me. I breathe.
As the seasons grow colder, I must fight the chill within myself. The deep nights stretch toward morning, pushing back, whispering their own promises to me that are hard to ignore. I wrap them around myself like a shawl. They smell of closeness and heat.
But the demand of morning hours soon becomes too much. I slip my fingers through the night one last time, then draw the curtains back.
10.1.25 darker mornings @nosebleedclub
