BLAZE

Her long black hair was ablaze with starlight and the vision stole my heart. My lady of the moonlight.

As I stood watching her on the bridge while the River Thames flowed beneath her feet, I tried not to blink, not wanting to miss a single second.

Was it a lover’s tiff that brought her here at this late hour?

Why did the blaze of light play around her like a halo?

For a moment I couldn’t help wondering, was she real or a figment of my imagination. A long-held desire to play the knight in shining armour, rescue a damsel in distress?

Would my damsel vanish should I touch her?

She turned towards me and I was held in check by a sudden blaze of light. I had seen this face before, in a dream, but I knew I was awake. She was outside my dreamscape.

I felt my heart beat wildly, trying to be free of the cage that held it inside my body. I was being pulled towards her as if she were a magnet. The light that surrounded me fading as our bodies touched.

I had become one with the light that came from her. We were fused as one being. I was above the bridge now, looking at my body floating in the dark waters of the Thames. To some unknown destination, to be washed up on some shore.

Someone will find my body. They may even wonder what sadness drove me from my life. There is no need for sadness, for I am one with the light.

My star will blaze in the night sky, waiting to be born again…

Anita Dawes