Night Things

Middle of the night and shivering, I come alive and fight the urge to cry out loud.
Breath hanging there in that orange light streaming down from atop lamp posts and front door archways onto welcome mats and little potted flowers in their little painted flower pots, all pinks and reds sunk deep into that earthy brown. Lean close, that sickly sweet smell filling my nose. Alive and squirming there in my skin, exposed for the world to see. Growing late now, restless and ready to explode with wondering and anticipation, frozen in fear and unable to move. Minutes there before sunrise, and as shadows begin to move from behind miniblinds and roman shades I feel like some kind of kinetic machine, always to defy those laws of God and man. And in that soft light of the pre-dawn morning, in the mist that hangs just off the ground, I feel the moving, see the shadows of all those little things that will be gone by full sun up. All those little night goblins and crawly things that shrink and hide from the light , all those things that, for fear of finding them alive in me, keep me from sleeps gentle grasp.