Michellia Wilson
Poetry Marathon Hour 10 (2021)

THE DAY THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

I.
I first noticed a long shadow cast on me
from the West,
pensive sunlight
restrained by dusk,
a murkiness akin to
the water lapping the pond’s edge.

It was an evening like many others –
a sink half full of a day’s dishes,
a small pile of laundry
in the hamper;

The next day,
the shadow moved in –
daunting – enveloping –
with curtains drawn tightly,
the previous evening poured
precisely to fill a new day –
and yet,
in that void,
I grew unable to discern time,
the darkness manifest itself
into all my time.

II.
I stood a the threshold of the shower,
for what felt like hours,
unable to step inside.

III.
Medications lined up like obedient soldiers,
went untouched.
I inhaled blackness like cigarette smoke.
I saw darkness as my only choice in hues;
my pupils grew large
and the day came when I could not see,
I WAS the darkness.

IV.
I lost myself in the azure mountains
swallowed by an ebony skyline.
I lived in that ancient hill
I built inside my apartment.
The light that might save me,
masked by curtains floor to ceiling.
I stood afraid to part the cloth
that could possibly resuscitate
the sun high above my shoulders
on a fall day.

V.
The day passed through me like I was
translucent – from the light that hit the pane,
restrained by draperies.

VI.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Everything then was just twilight –
muted dawns,
and as time has turned pages,
not much has changed.

VII.
The medications are still in a row,
except – now I take them every day.
The air remains thick, but I can breathe –
through a darkness I have come know
better than family.