Letters from Xhale the magazine Words that breathe. Stories that Linger,

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A sophisticated, literary editorial image for “Tonight”: a solitary Black man seen from far away, standing beneath a vast midnight sky, separated by open space and darkness, subtle stars and a faint horizon glow, contemplative and longing, deep black and indigo tones with restrained silver-blue light, minimalist composition, no text, no border, no collage.

Tonight

A sophisticated, literary editorial image for “Tonight”: a solitary Black woman seen from far away, standing beneath a vast midnight sky, separated by open space and darkness, subtle stars and a faint horizon glow, contemplative and longing, deep black and indigo tones with restrained silver-blue light, minimalist composition, no text, no border, no collage.

Tonight
I dare to let it go—
and if it must go,
then it must.

Gently,
I give shape to what could be,
an expression held loosely
between breath and surrender.

Tonight
I feel more abandoned than ever,
my thoughts stretching past understanding,
slipping out of reach
just when I try to name them.

I pardon myself in wonder.
I glorify her figure with laughter,
amazed at how memory
still quickens my mind.

Before tonight,
a woman greeted me—
she wanted this night.

In tears,
she wanted tonight.
In regret,
she wanted death.

Her wounded heart
accomplished something I had never seen:
how grief can arrive first,
how death can influence love
before love even begins.

Tonight,
that truth stays.

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Author’s Note: Tonight was written for the woman who came asking for this specific night—for the mercy of an ending before a beginning, for the strange relief of naming what hurts before it ever has a chance to turn into love. Some evenings arrive already carrying their own aftermath, and we sit inside them stunned, learning that grief can wait at the door of a story that has not yet started. This poem belongs to that threshold, to the hour when longing and surrender keep the same time.