#NaPoWriMo Day 27: Flashover.

Today, napowrimo.net has asked us to get in touch with some of our sadder feelings that don’t necessarily have a name by taking a word from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. I chose the term ‘flashover‘ which is the moment when there is a sudden spark and the conversation comes alive.

This is a poem about connections that we form at the oddest of hours, but as much as we would like for there to be something more to the connection, unfortunately, there isn’t. The loss of something that we could have had hits us in ways that we cannot really explain and that is what I have tried to explore here, in a story of two people, but only as seen from the perspective of one.

Happy reading! Xx

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The silence of these lonely nights
Cuts right into my bones,
Not a soul awake to talk to,
And those awake can’t keep up,
2AM and the golden streetlights
Illuminating my window just enough
As I watched you walk to yours,
Eyes met for a moment there,

Were there sparks?
I don’t think I’m sure.

And yours would be the last face I see
Before I’d drift to the land of dreams,
Maybe it was the 2AM talking,
But I could feel us tied by a string—
The whole world asleep,
And it’s just you and me,
I know this is just another flashover,
But there might just be something.

If there were sparks, then,
I couldn’t feel a single thing.

I find my thoughts wandering
Over to where your window looks
Right across at mine;
Boundaries and a million lines
That remain to be explored,
But every 2AM, you’d be there,
Like you understood the stillness of the world,
And come morning, you’d be gone.

I could swear there were sparks,
They just weren’t enough.

Perhaps we could tiptoe the lines,
Sit under the stars, exchanging words only we knew,
We were only inches apart,
But the longing in me only grew,
There would be none other quite like you,
Nobody else ever understood
Why the world was much better at 2AM,
When everyone was asleep but me and you.

And if there were sparks,
We kept them hidden deep within,
And if there was a happy ending,
We couldn’t see what was coming…

We were just ships in the night,
Passing each other by,
And every 2AM, I’d keep you company
And you’d be mine,
But this world works in the sunlight,
All we ever had were the nights;
The dawn would come, once again,
The sun would shine—

Upon the hurtful reality of it all,
For all that we ever sought after,
In the loneliness of 2AM’s darkness,
Was a hand to hold,
A kindered soul,
But when all was said and done,

You and I could never be lovers…
And all we had was just a flashover.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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If you’ve made it this far, consider checking out my best friends’ pages, Kittu’s Modern Mixtape and Amour Infini for more amazing poetry! I hope you liked what I had to offer, today.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster. Xx

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Featured Image by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash