Goodnight

A soft-spoken breeze

Carries leaves across the shaded grass

Whispers along blades

Fragile as the words

That hung lifeless
On our lips
The sun filtered through
Cloud strands brushed to match
Her onyx hair and
The bony fingers of
Sleeping trees gnarled by
Memories of life

She echoed the soft light of evening
Eyes sparkling with a false smile
Worn by overuse
These days
She swallowed her wine with all the bravado
Of a woman who knew
Just where the sun collapses
These days

And God knows, where the story goes
From here
All hope dead on the riverbeds of long
Dried tears
But I'll remember the unspoken
And the cry of the ravens
The scratch of the leaves along
My throat
I'll remember how my world hung
In the balance
I'll remember the moment our hearts cried out
In horror

She revoked the smile from my own lips
An instant, bloodless and swift
Shorn as if it had never
Existed
She exposed to me my only weakness
That I dared love the treacherous
Preferred it even, to any other that
Existed

We've all got our demons
And I've still got my drinking
And what I can't forget tonight
Will be gone before the bottles
Are empty.