Unkind Dawn

oh what an unkind
glory you’re, sunrise.
perversely you walk-in
on people possessed in
intimate dreams with hot
burst of light, and fondle
them to lurid consciousness.
you seep past curtains
into dim, sweaty bedrooms
of lovers naked and snuggled
under sheets and have
them break away from
night long embraces
to get on with life. you
break a drunk man’s reverie,
pouring like molten lead
into his blurry, double vision.
and raid the unfaithfuls escapade
in a shady hotel room, as their
betrayed counterparts dry their
wounds in your glare.

i have this thing about nights,
i tell you. who isn't’ as boastful of
its serendipity. one who’s calm,
grounded and liberal, and is okay
sharing the moon’s sheen with
the jaded stars of distant sky. it’s
the night that gets the poets drunk
on touches of lost people and time,
and have their scars bent into
literature. it’s the nights that embellishes
the warfare of subatomic particles
into the ever radiant northern lights at the artic.
it’s the nights that tames the mighty oceans,
nights that brings the birds home,
and lulls the wearied into dreams.

do you see how they fade out
without slightest resistance? at the
brink of dawn it dissipates into day.
the dewy grey falling away,
like the melting tip of an icicle
held over the flame. most importantly,
nights aren’t egoists - for they let you put on
lights if you're afraid and feel like day,
and even strike fires to keep zombies away.
nights, you see, can be emulated -
anytime, anywhere – in the cave of your palms,
and behind your closed eyes.
they live with you, inside you,
never abandoning, bringing out the intellectual quiet,
in a strong peg of darkness and destruction.

it’s on one beautiful night that
i am sharing this tale with you,
and i already feel edges of your
promises scrape my insides.
is it true that you loved me with
your night time fantasies, and
ditched me for the ambitions of day?

- Sobhan