Just Before Dawn

I watch you breathe.
Your small shoulders look so frail,
your little ribcage so vulnerable as it rises and falls.

Your eyelashes, thick and long,
gently rest on your face
as your eyes dart back and forth beneath the lids.

I wonder. 

What are you dreaming?  Is it sweet or full of sorrow? 
Does the blackness that haunts my sleepless hours,
touch your dreams?

The stars are fading. 
Soon the sun will peek it's head over the distant mountains
and grace us with it's glory. 

I feel the darkness in my soul tugging,
it's fingers flickering like flames, licking at the edges of every thought. 
I fear it will consume me. 

I close my eyes tight,
tears bleeding down my cheeks from my bladed eyelids. 
Why can't I lose this?

Opening my eyes,
I look at you through an ocean,
and fear grips my heart like an icy cold fist.

How will you survive this black, this shadow? 
Born of two broken hearts, scarred with hungry swipes of an unseen demon,
begging us back to the dirt. 

She is broken too. 
She was born with black eyes.
Her storm is different but somehow the same.  Pulling her.

But you.  Did you hide inside me? Staying very still so it did not see you? 
Or did the hooded cloak watch you grow and decide you were too pure to touch? 
Perhaps.

As the room grows light I feel the fingers pulling, tearing at me to walk away. 
I stay. 
Your small shoulders will keep me. 

I pull your blanket up and cover them. 
Those tiny shoulders. 
I clench my teeth and make myself watch you.

Digging my fingernails into my palms,
I welcome the pain and let myself sob.
I know your shoulders will keep me.
-J