The Night Owl
The owl worked for years with patient spite,
Each step concealed, each move just right.
No warmth to fake, no love to feign
Just quiet loathing, tightly reined.
She cooked it up, a flawless scheme,
To end his light, fulfill her dream.
And when he fell no trace, no clue
She flew away like morning dew.
No guilt, no tie, no price to pay
Just silence as she slipped away.
The owl spoke once just one word right,
And watched it twist his world that night.
A shadow passed across his face,
His breath grew short, his thoughts lost place.
He paced, he raged, then fell to still,
As if the house absorbed his will.
No screams, no crash, no final fight
Just silence swallowing the night.
The gathering she so long had feared
Died with him just disappeared.
The next day loomed, the gathering near,
With family close, the ones not dear.
The owl dreaded most their tender gaze,
Their love for him, their flawless praise.
For he adored them, held them tight,
A bond she couldn’t dim or fight.
So with a word, a sharpened cue,
She cracked the peace he once held true.
He broke, he raged, withdrew from light
The gathering died with him that night.
And she, composed, just watched it fall,
Her coldest wish behind it all.
At first they mourned, too stunned to see,
The cracks beneath her sympathy.
But time, unkind, began to nudge
How did it all so neatly budge?
His final hours, the broken night,
Each piece aligned too clean, too right.
The fight, the fall, the canceled day
Each thread unwound her careful play.
No proof, no stain, no clear misdeed
Yet something foul was sown in seed.
And whispers grew behind closed doors:
How fate could sweep with such clean floors.
They spoke in hush, in careful tone,
Of how he’d seemed so worn, alone.
How once he laughed with steady cheer,
Then shadows clung from year to year.
She smiled too quick, her tears too dry,
Her sorrow neat, without a cry.
They wondered how the storm began
And why it served her every plan.
The rage, the fall, the perfect storm
All danced too well outside the norm.
No slip, no flaw, no grieving mess
Just her, now free, in calm success.
Let the walls speak of what went wrong,
The quiet night, the silence long.
What sparked the fall? Who lit the flame?
His tragic fate or her cruel game?
Who grants us peace, when truth won’t rise?
Who names the guilt behind goodbyes?
Not her soft tale, so sweet, so thin
But what the dark kept tucked within.
She left no trace, no open wound,
Yet still the room hums with the tune.
She got her wish his final breath,
The hush that followed marked his death.
No scream, no plea, just silence spread,
The man who once roared now lay still.
And in her chest, a hollow thrill,
For all she cooked had worked until.
She rummaged through what he left behind,
For years she’d kept it in her mind.
Each heirloom, trinket, watch, or tie
She claimed them all with glassy eye.
It looked as though it happened plain,
A heart gave out no sign of strain.
Each moment turned in her favor’s light,
Too smooth, too perfect, too polite.
No hand was seen, no plot was traced,
Yet every piece fell into place.
But now we ask, with hearts still torn,
What twist of fate, what truth was born?
Who cast the dice for this cruel game
The universe, or her wicked aim?
Did God look on, or turn away,
And let her wish unravel, sway?
Was it the dark, with wicked hands,
That sealed the fate with cruel commands?
Where is the justice, where the light,
That might restore what vanished that night?
Who answers now, in this cold place,
For the soul erased without a trace?
—The Unheard