Haunted Lullaby

Midnight breeds its own breed of comfort, half-consolation, half-threat,
A lullaby sewn from every mistake that clings to the pillowcase,
Regret is a restless companion, humming in the attic,
Rehearsing old catastrophes in minor keys–
Sleep will not come for the wicked, nor the wounded,
Only the haunted truly know the currency of silence,
How every hour spent awake is paid in the ghosts of the ones left behind,
Dreams unravel into anxieties with the persistence of roots through concrete,
Fears nest in the ribcage and multiply, feeding on every frail spark of hope,
A web of wishes deferred, ambitions aborted, stitched together by nocturnal shame.

The lullaby is not gentle, but persistent–
It’s the recitation of every “if only” ever uttered,
The way childhood promises corrode into warning signs,
How the mother’s song becomes a dirge with each passing year,
In the throb of insomnia, every loss is magnified,
Unfulfilled hunger replays on loop, a theater of half-lived lives,
The tune turns cruel, mourning every second wasted on forgiveness,
Yet even as the shadows press their cold lips to the throat,
A fragment of resistance glimmers–stubborn, unsentimental,
A single note threaded through all the discord, refusing to be snuffed.

Somewhere in the marrow, defiance cracks the code,
A fresh resolve rises from the wreckage, teeth bared,
The melody shifts from requiem to rally,
From mourning to mutiny, the mind refuses to be mapped by its worst fears,
History howls, but the spirit answers with a growl–
Tonight, the ghosts do not get the final word.
Instead, there’s a refrain of survival, a rhythm of scars that pulse with life,
By sunrise, the lullaby has changed:
It is not peace, but persistence, the will to keep singing in spite of the dark,
A vow whispered to the day–never to be defined by the worst of the night.