Her Keeper : One Shot Wednesday: One Stop Poetry

My sister doesn’t sleep

I want to say
Are you still afraid–of the night?
but she’d kill me if I knew.

My sister doesn’t sleep

I lay awake imagining
the chemicals that flood
her brilliant mind, dousing
her down to a caged animal
that’s half-beating.

My sister doesn’t sleep.
I wait for dawn to meet her.

She tells me without words
that there’s a price to pay
when you forge bravery;
there’s a debt that’s owed
to your soul when you
abandon it to danger.

Her dark eyes–those
faceless moons–tell me
somehow I’d been right
to hide in the dark