Guardian of Midnight Dreams

I wake to a breath of honeysuckle drifting through crack screen-doors
a tender pulse of hope stirring beneath my ribs,
as soft and insistent as a moth's wing brushing rose petals.
Longing coils its slender tail around my ankles,
its texture like scuffed leather warmed by the sun's first fingers.
Outside, a church bell-too fragile for this hour-trembles in the half-light,
each ring barely audible,
like a secret shared between shadows.

My guardian shifts at the threshold: ebony fur billows into smoke-threads,
then solidifies into a towering silhouette cradling
a magnolia blossom brimming with dew.
Its eyes-once twin moons-now flare with sunbeams,
fracturing prisms across the peeling wallpaper.
In our silent choreography,
I feel the rough wool of my blanket trail over cold floorboards,
and the distant hum of unseen engines
resonates in my chest like a lullaby turned inside out.

Here, at the edge of night and day,
logic loosens its grip:
coffee drips upward into an upside-down porcelain mug,
shadows unlace their arms,
and the air tastes faintly of winter grapes.
All is whispered promise-hope painted in scent and sound,
longing sketched in touch-while my guardian,
steadfast and strange,
melts into dawn's soft glow,
a living vow that protection and transformation can live in the same breath.