The night wrapped itself up in me [poem]

The night wrapped itself up in me,
covered my eyes and whispered
sweet nothings in me.
I shivered in its cold embrace,
smothered in a blanket of
late-night breeze, icy tendrils
reaching through me —
the ghostly touch of death.

How I loved, in my loneliness,
the human feeling of a
stranger’s embrace,  a
momentary encounter of heat,
bodies open to each other.
How heady desperation and desire
gave way to ecstatic release.
No reservations.

When it’s all over, the cold
sweat settles like water on pavement
after a heavy rain.
How that feeling of connection
is broken, lost
to the sightless dark of night,
as we each fumble through the lamp-light
of the moon to go our separate ways.
The silence of the evening
averts our gaze and ushers us away.

The night wrapped itself up in me,
held me tight in its cold embrace
and whispered its loneliness
into me.

{Note: Poem was published in Vol. 2, Iss. 3 of Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color} 

Artwork by dreamersid