i cannot read poetry at night
when my thoughts run wild within my solitude,
the words on the page overrule the suppression of memory.
the darkness twists shadows
into faces i’ve prayed to forget
the silence births voices both
foreign and familiar.
it’s easier to hide at night, within the safety of illusion
but there is no way to escape the mind
when it is three a.m and my only companions
are the thoughts that cling to living ghosts,
and the words of a writer who could not outrun
the truths found in darkness.
Chloé Bertrand is an English and Film major in her third year at Carleton University. She is a
lover of the arts, in all its many forms and hopes to continue nourishing her passion for writing
throughout the length of her academic career and beyond. She has previously been published
in the Ottawa Public Library’s Pot-Pourri anthology and Sumac Literary Magazine.