One Cool Night

Subha N. Khan

My grief crept in one cool night

Caught me unawares 

Swallowed me completely 

And laughed like some hellish sprite

Thus began my eternal fight

My grief, my forever friend howls with glee

Sometimes it is butterfly wing thin, soft as sunlight

Fluttering in the caverns of my head

I imagine

I drown it

I choke it in the sea

Though often it is a kraken, Dissatisfied

Painting the decks of my mind red with blood, wrecking the skull

drowning me instead

So now I sit with my grief, with no way to be free

I mother it, nurture it, hold its hot hand 

carry it with me

I’m with you all the way whispers my grief

in the firelight we sit, we stretch 

One shadow