The night is my refuge

The night is my refuge

A dark place easily within reach

Where I go and hide

Burying my head after Sandman passes through

I loiter in the long quiet corridor

Inspecting every speck of dust

Tiny beginnings of a spider web
Hints of some unseen draught, perhaps?

Never a glance at the faint light in the doorway

And if you curl up on your side

The corridor becomes a well

The little patch of sky almost out of sight
Almost reassuring

Distant possibility like a waking dream

Safe in the collective shadow

You pretend to forget your own

While it feeds on itself and grows

Every night

Every day

Between the familiar devil and the deep blue sky

An ache I've known so long it's turned phantom -

No longer sure if it's really there -

The simulation of an illusion, or vice versa

So I stay up and stay down

As the day seeps in and washes over

Inevitable and indifferent like ocean waves

Leaving all exposed and exhausted, again

And again