Some moments refuse to fade; they settle heavy, pressing into the quiet. Daylight blurs into dusk, the world’s hum softens, and something unnamed stirs. The mind unthreads memories, tracing unfinished shapes—words left unsaid, choices untouched, moments without closure.
This is how the night works.
Maybe it unfolds in bed just before sleep, in a kitchen lit by a lone lamp, or in a parked car with fingers tapping the wheel as thoughts circle back. What was set aside returns. Memory lingers. It waits.
Some memories emerge as soft whispers, insistent and low. Others burst in raw, sharp fragments. And then there are those that ache—the almosts, the what ifs, the weight of what remains.
What The Night Holds
A Poem by Kerry A. Wiley
The past does not knock.
It is already within.
Laughter, half-formed, half-forgotten,
spills from an empty room.
A voice, sharp as shattered glass,
cuts through the hush.
No footsteps announce its arrival, no warning precedes its return,
a door left open, or one that never truly closed?
Echoes of laughter, once belonging to someone else,
linger like a ghostly caress.
A touch remains long after it has faded,
the shape of a goodbye never spoken.
No light, only the interplay of shadow and memory.
No sound, only the resonant echo of what was.
The weight of what was.
The phantom of what could have been.
The ache of what still endures.
Not emptiness, but fullness,
a silence that breathes, a question without an answer.
A door left ajar,
a presence that was never entirely absent.
Was it waiting, or did it arrive unbidden?
It does not leave.
It does not sleep.
It never forgets.
The dark does not speak,
it only holds its vigil.
The Shape of What Lingers
Memory arrives unannounced, slipping in when stillness allows. Not every recollection comes wrapped in warmth. Some return like splintered glass. They are fractured and sharp, felt more deeply than understood.
The laughter of another era and a voice out of sync with the present emerge. Each fragment serves as a reminder of something that should have faded, yet lingers. It is a soft ache, whispering of what once was.
Absence is never empty. Sometimes it bears the weight of unspoken words—a goodbye lingering in the gap between past and present. The past does not simply vanish. It shifts, settling into the spaces we leave behind, quietly raising questions about what was and what might have been.
When the Past Stays
Memory cycles through: a song, a name, a place. Each detail lingers, nudging the present with echoes of what was never truly left behind. Some moments retreat into silence; others insist on being noticed.
The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Not all silence is empty. Some silences cradle the unsaid, holding the weight of feelings never fully expressed.
Sitting with the Silence
Not every thread of our story is meant to be neatly tied up. Some remain loose, raw, and unpredictable, like the night itself, where the past hovers at the edges, quietly restless and defiant.
Night as Keeper of Memory
In quiet corners where the mind wanders, memory stakes its claim. The night holds more than fleeting thoughts. It cradles echoes of laughter, murmurs of farewells unsaid, and every story left incomplete. Each recollection bears the weight of its unfinished truth.
Night does not erase our past; it preserves it in a silence that feels rich and profound. Whether a door is left ajar or never fully closed, our history remains a constant presence shadowing every quiet hour.
Darkness is not an empty void but a keeper of our memories. It is a place where unspoken words echo and lost possibilities linger. It doesn’t grant easy answers, only a place where stories wait.
In these raw, unscripted moments, our story unfolds. Laughter mingles with the echoes of memory, and every unspoken goodbye leaves us wondering about the promise of tomorrow.
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