pale cloak
The night holds me open
like a cracked jar,
light leaking from the edges of my eyelids
though I’ve closed them a hundred times.
Morning waits with sharpened teeth—
alarm clocks, backpacks,
toast burned or not enough—
but I cannot step into its jaws.
I tell myself I am a lantern,
burning low,
my fuel already measured in single drops,
but even the flame doubts me.
The walls whisper in quiet echoes,
reminders that I was meant
for more than this dim hallway of hours,
yet here I pace—
a map smudged with fingerprints,
roads drawn but never walked.
My children dream in their soft rooms,
faces like folded paper untouched by rain,
and I wonder if my hands
are steady enough
to keep them from tearing.
The darkness becomes a mirror,
every failure stitched into its surface—
potential wasted like seeds
spilled across concrete,
a garden I never bent down to tend.
I lie awake,
not because I want to,
but because the silence
reminds me of all the unfinished lines
I pretend I will write tomorrow.
And still,
I stay—
a dim lantern wavering in its glass,
a cracked jar leaking light too quickly,
never certain if what I hold
will ever be enough
to keep their lights warm.
signal aurora