The Night is mine;
Its tranquil undergrowth
Its eerie loveliness
Its wayward melody
Whose every haunting note
Hides
The silent screams
That seize my lungs,
That claw out but in vain,
Clinging onto sheer desperation
In the madness of this moment
That seems to have
Frozen
Into a brief ‘forever’ –
One of the many
That sulk and skulk
About the sidewalks of my nights
Casting their shadows smooth
Upon the dark and the deep
That glide
Into its mystery –
Like friends of old
They greet
To meet before,
Again, they part
There is a stark comfort
In this that though the Day’s
Disguise is yours,
The Night is mine,
For me, mine alone –
Its louring scaffolding
Its liberating anonymity
Its untold lore of yore
Its unabashed beauty

– Akanksha Gupta