Where the Dark Can’t Follow

I was small in a field with no edge, hands full of fur and prayer. Grass kept cutting my ankles, night had teeth in the air. Your shoulders rose like a promise under my shaking knees. I poured my fear into breathing, you gave the ground back to me. Run where the dark can't follow, run till the shadows tire. Carry my heart through the hollow, carry the last little fire. My dress snapped loose like a sail, my hair flew back into wind. The world behind us went wordless, the world ahead hadn't begun. You cut through the grass like weather, I learned the shape of escape. Not every wild thing is hunger, not every mercy is tame. Run where the dark can't follow, run with your breath on the ground. Carry my heart through the hollow before it learns how to drown. Run, not away, but farther than the fear that called my name. Run where the dark can't follow, wild one, keep me awake. If my fingers loosen, will the night take me back? If my eyes fly open, will the field turn to ash? No, your pulse says no. Your bones say go. Your lungs say farther. Your feet say home. The dark was a door with no room, we were the breath that broke it. I was all trembling hands, you were the road that held them. We never waited for morning, we made a path by moving. Every blade of grass beneath us rose like a hymn under your feet. Run where the dark can't follow, run till the shadows tire. Carry my heart through the hollow, carry the last little fire. Run where the dark can't follow, run with the field in flight. When the whole world closes, teach the night to open. Hold on. Hold on. Run.