The windows of the house looked kind and warm at night,
the way they leaked the yellow light of home
out onto the rocks, grass, and trees.
They seemed suspended in the night, like beacons of hope, reminders of care.
To make one and all feel loved and at home.
The yellow light spilled out onto the street,
cheerful and welcoming, acting like a candle to all the lost and lonely souls
—the moths of the human race.

It hurt to turn away but she did, eventually;
she turned from that warm light, denying the remorse, the hate.
It was behind her now, that light.
She couldn’t go back, no matter the warmth, the welcome.
The calamity in her soul forbid it and as
she walked from the house, each small step a feat,
her eyes filled with tears.
The whispers of darkness pricked at her ears but she kept walking.
The promise of depth, the whimper of lost hope, tickled her consciousness.
Come, it murmured into her being,
its ghost-like, chilly tendrils dragging her
further and further into the dark masses of loss.
Come to us.

At first, she ignored the sweet talk,
ignored the wonderful mutter, she held her
livelihood close to her, safe.
But the talk changed to song,
with such wondrous dark beauty, fluctuating,
wearing down on her mind,
clogging her thoughts with senselessness,
she was worked into forthcoming.
Talk, the melody demanded.
Talk to us.

She spoke her words of vice,
spoke the bitterness that she did not feel but knew to be true.
She spoke, and her voice grew and
she yelled and her voice died and
she whimpered.
She whimpered the misdealing of her youth,
the misguiding of her adulthood.
She yelled her disregard for love,
and told of her passion for innocence, injustice.
She spoke of the vague mist of her life, and she did not cry.

Finally, she kneeled, stopped walking,
fell into the darkness with mirth and poise.
Finally, she had begun her descent
into what she knew was coming;
she welcomed the dust much as she had the
yellow light long before.
Finally, she slept.