BLUE NIGHT

I wrote Blue Night in 2009 and just recently taught the poem to a college level writing class. The students were so moved by the words and I was moved by their reaction, I decided that I should post it.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland

Blue Night

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.

It is you I become in the night.
It is you I fade into the dark shadows with,
my heart swells in the shallow of my chest. I am
shivering inside, with no where to hide. A forest of
imaginary creatures creating fears in my blinded mind.

Swaying in the dark of the night, leaving
bloody footprints at the doorstep of my heart.
I fight to forget our last kiss,
I fight to forget our last touch,
I fight to forget your smell, I fight your image
as it drags me through hours of black hell.

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.

In the cerulean darkness,
lapping at the gritty beach,
your cracking sky emits truth over a
complex collection of hidden lies.
You know no other light but dark,
rejecting truth in favor of illusion.

Blue is my resurrection.
It is the color of my blood moving
through the rivers of my veins;
it is the color I turn when cold;
it is the color I will be when dead.
It is you I fight in the night.
I am what morning counted on last night.

Blue night,
I will not sleep, I will refuse you,
I will trick you and dream awake.
One hundred nights died for the truth of one day.