At Night

At night, the weight of all I’ve loved and lost, of words I’ve not said, of lives I’ve not lived presses against my temples.

In the dark, the heaviness crushes my sternum and turns it to dust. My ribs combust one by one. My heart liquefies and pours out of my mouth. I collect it. Put it in a pretty jar so that in the morning I can shape it into something new and place it back where it belongs.

But there is nothing that can be done for powdered bones and liquid hearts at night. So, I dip my fingers into the jar and write on the walls, the bed, the carpet. I write until the jar is almost empty. Until galaxies of words surround me, until my fingers fall away, and my spine folds in on itself. Only then, when my body has collapsed like an ancient star do I allow the darkness to consume me, renew me, revive me.

In the morning, the dust of my bones has resettled into something solid and the heart in the pretty jar is new again, and so much lighter than it was before. I swallow it whole. Thankful for the few hours of weightlessness that the sun allows.

Even more thankful for the nightly reincarnation given by the dark.