Midnight Escape

By night the city

is a stranger,

so quiet

the windchimes dare not speak

for fear of waking the creatures.

I am one of them,

walking slowly,

slipping out from the shadows

and sliding through the light.

I stop, then,

and wait.

Machines rumble around me.

They turn,

churning closer

and closer

and closer

until I can feel

the tingle of excitement

growing somewhere beneath my feet

and moving across the steel.

I sat and watched the silence,

I sat and heard the dark,

but nowhere in their

melodies

did I find you,

not even after letting

precious time slip through

my cold fingers,

so, burning with anger

I ran back to the light and the noise

and fell asleep

holding onto the soft comforts

of another creature,

cradled in the arms of the growing day