Bright Midnight

The world was black.

Empty.

A swath of mingling darks catching the shadow of a castle

Made of stone and rotten days of mirth

Now lost to the current of mist swirling around her foundation,

Gathering in the cracks,

In the furrow between brows and dark eyes.

.

Locked out.

Stuck on the peripheral vision of a place that had been home,

Caught on the fence,

On the eve of today and tomorrow

Wondering, wondering, wondering

How long the loneliness would last.

The limp threw his gait from a powerful stride

To a delicate but ugly thing.

.

He'd never been pretty but he had been elegant.

Stoic.

Like the stone, polished and weathered in a way that gave

Distinction.

It had faded with the war, with the fight, with the victory,

And settled deep like a slow-creeping necrosis in his bones.

A thin hand clutched his cloak.

.

Rage slept in the sharp features.

Twitched in his long limbs as he slept fitfully.

Tonight, in the shadows and the incessant dark,

It was subdued.

The loneliness was an analgesic

To the pain of longing company brought on,

An aching sick of the heart.

.

"You're bleeding."

A hammer against the glass solitude boxing him in.

"Come back to mine, let me fix it."

Moonlight peeking around the clouds.

"I've got whiskey."

A nod in the darkness that somehow

Felt brighter than any other midnight ever had.