The Night Shines Like Fireflies Poem by Greg Allum

There it goes
and here it comes.
Say goodbye to the past and
welcome the future with a wide-eyed smile.
Welcome today with open arms.
Whatever it brings.
Whatever pitfalls,
be it screaming naked in tears,
banging your head against the wall because she decided to leave,
clutching clumps of your hair and pulling hard at their roots.
Wiping tears from the stained and cracked wooden floor
or just staring into space in a daze for hours on end,
whilst sombre songs float delicately around your room.

Whatever triumphs land on you.
The joy of opportunities that drip down from the sky.
Whether they bring success or failure.
The spark of a new love igniting a freshness in your stomach
or the realisation of being happy in one’s contorted body.
These are the moments when the secrets of life are revealed,
they open up and announce themselves in all their unashamed glory.

So constantly scrub at your skin that seals the pain and
rub away the past to reveal something new,
something untouched,
something clean and pure.
Fresh from a world of regrets, where choices were made through fear,
realise that this is a moment to embrace.
Whilst yesterdays are filled with sorrow and girls on mortuary slabs,
know that today is filled with blossom from autumnal trees.
Each day brings light so treat yourself to those pleasures
the ones you have negated before
the ones you believed you didn’t deserve.
Feed yourself the sun,
don’t be afraid of this light.
Love people
oh the glorious people
who enter your life and delicately push you forward.
Cherish the moment you are in
for once,
start to live,
start to breathe
and start to believe that
it doesn’t matter whether you choose the right road.
All that matters,
all that counts,
all that really counts
is that you pick up your weary feet from the floor
and move forward in a direction.
There may be mistakes and regrets,
glories and failures
but there will be love and laughter,
tears and heartache
and whilst the mornings can sometimes be filled with darkness
the night shines like fireflies.