“Alone and at Night”

by Eliana Sara

Do you remember when
We were walking late at night
And the streetlights went out

One by one
Like every horror film you’ve ever seen
At least that’s what you said
(I never went for those personally)

And we realized we were “city folk”
who are all marked by their shared fear
of complete darkness.

We ended up holding hands
and not admitting that
we were both more afraid than we should have been.

So you went to show off
following the path through the “forest”.
Really it was just a heavily tree-lined path
but to us, that’s a forest.

At home there is always some kind of
dirty, shady, (likely broken) light.
And even if they are orange and dim
our streets are never empty.

And we aren’t left to wonder
What’s crawling through the night
And if what we hear is human
Or something full of bright
menacing smiles and baring teeth
likely faster, stronger, than you
and hungry
for meat that’s fresh–
And you told me to stop.

I thought it was funny that I scared you.
I’m sorry I scared you.

Do remember we were sure we saw a fire
and you wanted to “check it out”
I had to admire your sense of adventure
(but now I think you just wanted to save face).

I reminded you of your horror movies
and told you that it was probably,
people trying to keep warm that night.
Besides all that, the leaves crackled loudly
and could easily give us away .

Then I had to remind you
as you were walking away
(because that’s the first it occurred to me)
that the cliché of
“straying from the path”
always ends badly.
And following lights past the dark
and through the leaves can only mean
that you wander off forever.

You went anyway
but I stayed.
When the lights came back on
I couldn’t see where you had gone.

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Eliana is a Brooklyn based gal. This is her first piece of poetry appearing anywhere. Other writing has shown up in Ink magazine and Kitsch. She has a fairly new online literary magazine: http://thefuriousgazelle.com/