Thursday Poem: The Promise of All We Desired

The Promise of All We Desired

In the darkness, hands reach out
for the safety of another’s warming skin.
The reassuring touch of breathing flesh
pressing back against tentative fingertips

To give comfort against the dark
and the lonely ticking of the clock
no-one can ever turn back
to those earlier days when life seemed

As though it could only grow beyond
into times that would turn and glow
with the promise of all we desired
waiting for us to come and take it all.

Now, though, the night seems long
even as the day is waiting,
ready to fall through the curtains
to reveal in its sharp light

How another day has arrived
ready to hasten us towards that time
when there will be no more lost days
and only a never-ending lonely night.