Pain
Annie Louise Twitchell
The dark shadow
of night falls
in a sudden rush
over my cottage.
Bright color and welcome song
cannot hold back the night.
Tonight the dark is
dangerous,
threatens to bury me
under the black expanse of the sky.
In the night I sit alone,
wishing for a whisper of comfort.
Would it not be better
to let the night run its course?
To let the new day shine clear?
Maybe it is best this way,
though I long for the dark
to be lifted, taken from me.
Then, in the rays of the new sun,
I see him coming towards me.
My friend,
come to spend the day with me,
to make our lonely nights
fade into pale memories.
I run to him, I will not
leave his side, the whole day long.
We delight in being alive, not alone –
it is being alone
that makes the night so dark,
makes it hurt so much.
This is one of my first poems that I was really happy with. I took a poetry class and the teacher asked us to write a metaphor. I chose pain, probably because I had a headache that day and was feeling pretty blue and depressed. I was happy with this because it evoked the emotions in myself that I was hoping to evoke in others. I have always felt frustrated at my inability to vocalize emotions – I start to explain why I feel sad and approximately 4.9 seconds into the explanation, I am a soggy puddle of tears. I wanted my poem to be able to talk because I can’t. Whether it worked on this one or not, I don’t know. It has worked on others that I’ve done since.
Copyright 2016 by Annie Louise Twitchell