I gave away my mind last night for
a soothing memory: a body, warm
against mine. Drizzles of honeyed rain, nacreous
clouds, and sun-sweetened wrists sifting through
shafts of lambency, buoying me through a
luminous delusion, an endless, sleepless night;
wherein I am a sailboat, bobbing
on the phantom touch of a glowing dawn;
wherein the moon cries quietly, a lonely
lover, plucking pale pearls of hope into my mouth;
wherein salt clings darkly to my sheets and
I have been waiting for solace for too long.
Maybe I am only chasing echoes, scattered
like milky magnolias in the midnight wind that
holds no sound, no darling love, merely
the cold surface of starless puddles
and lone melodies within an azure sky that I
harmonize with, awake and unaccompanied.
Maybe I have been yearning for softness in
pools of brittle shadow and wee hours that bruise
beneath my eyes like ripe plum skins. But
only the poignant silence of moonlight can bare
the ache of a beautiful love gone past, held
open in my tired mind like tender hands interlocked:
golden until sunrise, missing something warm.
Grace Ding
Grade: 11 / Sec. V
Fraser Heights Secondary School
Surrey, BC
“This poem is about sleepless nights spent longing for the companionship of someone you miss. You go through endless memories with them to bring back that brightness, an exhausting habit that only sinks you further into loneliness. It's a losing battle because you are looking for warmth in all the wrong places, but you can't help yourself; only in the silent, unmoving hours of the night can you find some semblance of the happiness you once felt. Inspired by personal experience. ”
Bio
Grace Ding is a grade 11 student from Fraser Heights Secondary. She does art, music, and writing in her free time, and is passionate about biology and psychology. She draws inspiration from her personal experiences for her creative works. She has a pet guinea pig named Topaz.