“Let the dusk light in“
I.
What is the worth of this quill?
The price of ink in which I spill upon the page?
Or the life of the bird the feather was plucked from?
Oh, and what a tender creature it must have been.
Set forth to conquer the widening sky without a care in the world.
Surely, it was a mother.
I so hope she didn’t leave any babies behind.
But think of all the gifts it has given me.
How can you put a price on a voice?
I can’t.
It is this very quill that saved my life.
Brought me back into the sunlight.
To be alone is to be free.
To be free is to be dead.
I’ve been alone so very long.
Even the spiders have gone away.
They construct their palaces of silk in the corners of my windows.
Weaving galaxies reflected in raindrops caught in their webs.
This castle has become my web.
My tomb, I fear.
If it were not for ink and paper, I’m sure it would be.
But there is so much left to say.
Bless the bird that died for these words and all the world it left behind.
There is still hope.
There must be.
Johnathon will return.
I need to hold on.
for him.
II.
Autumn air never screams.
It whispers.
Not like Winter.
Blistering.
Howling.
Begging to be let in.
Turning leaves tell stories.
October winds listen.
It is the fourth harvest without my dear Johnathon.
The counting of days had become too cumbersome.
It was romantic to start.
When hope still rang eternal.
And to think, how proud I would be to watch him walk up the path.
Sitting here, at my desk, overlooking the yawning forest.
He would be dirty.
Weak from hunger and battle.
I would have to bath him.
Assist in stripping the torn threads from his body.
Setting him down into the warm water.
After, I’d make stew and cornbread.
Only of the finest caliber.
Wine.
An abundance of wine.
He’d speak of stories from battle.
The brave men lost beside him.
Those rough hands of his in mine.
He’d tend to the fire even after I told him not to.
Our love would be gentle that night.
Holding one another in the glow of candlelight.
I’d welcome every inch of his body.
Every cut.
Scrape.
Disease.
It didn’t matter.
The healing would come.
In the morning we’d lay naked in bed.
A cold morning sun caught in the pale blue of his eyes.
Entire worlds are held within those eyes.
Just like the morning dew reflected in the spider’s web.
Our life would fall back into ritual.
And the pain of my days would fade like a bruise.
I just need him to come home.
This war will offer no rewards.
No reprieve from the dying days.
For what?
So brutish men have something to do with their sharpened swords?
They create the laws that send our fathers, sons, and husbands to their deaths.
Never a thought to the loved ones left behind.
Now this sanctuary has become my prison.
This room a cell.
Tomorrow.
I will go outside.
