an interlude

(This post was originally published on my personal blog, Of Postcards & Ink, between 2015-2016.)

There is a city.

Her heart is built with heavy bricks –
Where the mortar is stained red,
And tears fill the cracks in the pavement.

Her colours are muted,
Her voice faint.

Hours are the prisoners of mourning souls;
Meaningless loss spanning the pockmarked wreckage
Cradled by quickened heartbeats and those
That beat no more.

And her mouth is sad,
The way that flowers wilt.
The confidence of her upright shoulders
Have become birds;
Constantly flying away from her,
Twisting and rising and falling
Like leaves in the wind.

Where the lightness of blissful beauty
Once burned so fiercely, so brightly,
Faded echoes and darker shadows remain.
She weeps.

There is a city.

In the fragile light of morning,
There are valleys around her eyes
That are deeper than they were before.

She has seen floods of joy, fear and loss
Fill the chapters of old,
And this,
This has left new ruptures.

They are ragged and weeping and ache
With the exquisite pain of the absurd.
Like a map left in the rain,
Her ink has run.

But tracing her fingers
Along the planes of settled dust –
She knows that to crumble
Is to be rebuilt,
To live on.

Gentle kisses on cold cheeks,
Soft words and quiet reassurances,
Timid footsteps in century-old streets –
Her glass is stained.
And yet,
She shines.