Between Day and Dusk

Where light falters and something remains

Authors note:

Some stars fade,
some reside,
some stay.

This poem is for everyone who was forced to face the night sky carrying promises that outlasted what was meant to remain.
For those who tasted the aftertaste of hope, carrying the bittersweet scent of memories.

The night might feel long, but the journey is not about endurance.
It is about joy.

Even without hope, the day still follows.
When darkness holds, so do the stars that pledged to remember what was lost.

imi & PancakeSushi

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Before the world returned,
there was a constellation of lights I tended,
you were the brightest,
until the sky split.

Days did not follow.
Nights did.

For every night,
there is a following dawn.

A chase that time created.
But light must be nurtured,
lest it fade.

Fires that burn bright
burn briefest.

Or crystals of ice,
suspended in the void,
brilliant particles reflecting
luminous memories,
pressing on me with the sorrow
of our beginning that smelled like
flowers in the driveway,
echoing the promises we made.

The aftertaste of hope
dissolving in the air,
like two asteroids clashing
until nothing remained.

The day I called that taxi to the airport,
the half-smile that curled on your face,
resigning in recognition,
wry seasoning for a bitter pill.

Hope never died; it blossomed in discarded environs.
It flourished like spores in the damp,
as surely as decay nurtured new beginnings,
blooming on the morrow.

Fed on the sun’s rays,
sipping sustenance in sunshine,
following its passage, supplicant to its majesty,
borne on the wreckage of the past.

Thunder moved inside my ribs,
a quiet detonation under the bones.

Cleansing trembled through the release,
a safety vest mistaken for peace.

When no luminous light awaited the road’s end,
the keeper of the tides dimmed its glow.
The disheartened sky could not bear it;
its tears fell until the earth darkened.

When life emptied itself of colour,
and what I thought was real faded.

From the remaining ruins, a small heat gathered;
ashes became fire between day and dusk,
and something feathered stirred in the ash.

Stars pledged to remember what was lost.
The night waved its white flag,
and the day quietly drifted in.

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