for the tarnished hearts

𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒇𝒕

prompt: "night shift"

thank you for 1.1k reads <3

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i took the night shift,

held up the limp, starless sky

you claimed would expand

like a dilating pupil,

swallowing you

if you dared to close your eyes,

afraid of this dark

that would slip in, crash down,

inky and inescapable,

to close around your lungs

with cold, greedy fingers,

split them apart

with words

that come down like a scythe.

it's been a while since a breath

has felt full, unburdened.

a breath that tasted like light.

the kind of clinging light

that catches on the swoops

of your eyelashes—

in a few short hours,

those dark eyelashes

will warm

into fans of burnt gold

beneath the small squares

of morning sun

that fall through the paned

bedroom window.

you'll be safe.

the day-bright sky will not fall apart

with you under it.

in the silence,

i lifted a warm palm to

your dry granite cheekbones

and the tears that aren't tears

but oceans

crashing in your bloodstream,

quiet as they corrode you.

darling,

drown the whole world,

just don't sink to the bottom

of this prison of salt.

unplug the drain

with pruned fingertips—

the pipes lead to your eyes

but i'll catch what spills over

and we'll taste this rain

on our parched hearts.

and in every chamber and valve

will bloom flowers,

sweet and alive and

stubbornly forever.

are you listening?

in the expansive dark,

i feel along the wall

that has suddenly risen between us.

i taste ash when i speak,

scrambling to find all the pieces

of yourself

you've lost, or discarded,

wanting to show you the life, the pulse,

in your passions,

in the world you've shaped

with an artist's hands,

in the parts of you

that aren't art, music, or metaphor.

in existing you are already beautiful.

i don't have to fold you

into something you're not

to slip you into a stanza.

i hold you in still arms

and you are gone, i know,

but i want to reach in,

feel the soft corners

of your soul

and pull you out of this free fall.

i took the night shift.

long hours passed,

the sun finally splashed

against eyelashes,

but they did not flutter.

love,

mari