The Night That Broke Poem by Bishnupada Sethi

The beautiful night never guessed
that in a few hours,
at the first pale light,
demons would drop from nowhere
to hunt the faint glow
my footprints had left.

They came armed,
in broad daylight,
blades ready to carve me
into silence.

Friends vanished
behind doors,
then returned masked,
picking my pockets clean.

A single rumor swelled
into a flood of teeth;
no one believed the man
I actually was.

When the circle tightened
and the knives rose,
she stepped straight into the storm—
unarmored, unflinching,
Joan of Arc made of quieter fire.

Her voice rang certain and clear to me:
"I want no gold, no palace, no crown—
only you,
and one small corner of any hut
where we can shut the door
and still be two.

Let them take everything.
If this place is no longer ours,
we will leave."

The night that meant to break me
broke itself instead.
We walked away
with nothing
but each other.