As the day casts its long shadow homeward
I recognise that so much of it has to do with the light.
They say it is always darkest before the dawn and perhaps that dawn is the realisation that the fear, shame and guilt linger longest in the hours of darkness
and they dance and pirouette amongst the silhouettes and shadows to a tune that beguiles and steals the light.
We light candles, we whisper of hope and future happiness and draw circles in vain to cast aside the demons.
We crave love and long to belong to another so that we have a hand to hold in the darkness a kindred spirit to guide us through the pain and suffering and lamentable servitude to solitude.
Sunrise.
Night yields to day and despair drifts away and the endless ebb and flow brings us slowly to the shores of our halcyon dreams.
© Alison Jean Hankinson
This is my contribution for World Mental Health Day. I think loneliness is a huge issue for so many people young and old alike and I think the hours of darkness are able to bring/conjure up their own unique set of torments.
For those who struggle to sleep it seems a long night.
For my girls.
Submitting this for open link night at d’Verse.
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Hues of Hankinson 
You are so right about this. Loneliness is sad and chronic, I think. As we move through the day, especially without support, love, and friendship, evenings seem to stretch forever… but we cannot appreciate the day without the night.
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Poems of hope are such reassuring gifts. They endure all through the current and next night.
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I like the phrase “servitude to solitude” and this description “fear, shame and guilt linger longest in the hours of darkness”.
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Much love to you Frank. XX
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I look forward to that time, when night yields to day, and into sunrise. You are right, loneliness is the culprit and can bring young and old to despair.
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Yes… loneliness is one of the largest health problems today. You can be lonely even in the middle of a crowd… and darkness can spill into dawn. But if we all help I think it’s a problem that can be bridged.
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This has a bit of a hypnotic rhythm to it. I agree with Frank, servitude to solitude stood out for me as well. There are a lot of both hard and soft rhymes aligned non-synchronized with the breaks rendering a soft rhythm like the tides, making that ebb and flow in the last stanza feel like we have been floating there all along.
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I resonate strongly with your words.. sigh.. sometimes I feel like the old days were better.. people had more empathy towards others and were in general nicer human beings. ❤️
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The longing to belong is the one quality that all humans share. So, we can have solace in knowing we’re at least not alone in that.
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