Dawn Finally Arrived

Sleep extinguished.
Tear-soaked pillows.
The beginning of a headache.
The hands on the clock don’t move.
We wonder if we can live through the pain.
Nothing to numb it.
All anesthetics forbidden by a decision made years earlier when the weight of grief was not yet calculated.
Prayers deficient.
We cannot pray. We will not kneel.
Why should we stoop to lie to a God who leaves us so alone?
Sleep won’t come.
We try to read. The same sentence.
Again and again and again.

Time has stopped.
It will be 3:34 AM forever.
We’re hungry.
No, not hungry. But empty.
We yearn for rice pudding.
The closest we can find is a cup of peach yogurt.
We eat it. Ignoring the expiration date.
We remain unsatisfied but the hands of the clock have moved – just a little.
We empty the dishwasher.
A glass slips from our hand.
Shatters.
We pick up the shards.
One pierces our left thumb leaving a gash that will become a scar that will bear witness to that endless night.
We sit on the kitchen floor.
Tears mix with the blood that seeps from our thumb.
We draw circles on the linoleum with our blood.
We draw the sun to invoke the dawn.
We continue until there is no more blood – no more tears
and only then do we notice that the dawn has finally come.