Night Crowns the Poor

Intense feelings do not always mean a happy ending. And that's fine.

Photo & Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2025.

They were telling each other things that insensitive people could not have told, yet, it kept existing between them an insensitivity that was incoherent for two beings who engaged in such declarations. Both of them were trapped in their own suffering and by the terror to suffer even more, ready to willingly sacrifice the few sweet occasions life could have brought to them. The beast within her had recognized the beast within him. Yet, instead of unleashing them together in wild embraces and stampedes in the hostile bayou of life, their mutual ferocity forced them to avoid one another, as if they were two rivals at the frontier of their respective territories.

When a woman and a man have too much anger inside of themselves, love does not even come to their mind; they are too busy exploring the Hell hiding within their chest. Somehow it was egoistic, a self-punitive egoism that was not allowing mutual feelings or desires. The worst thing about it was that they were well aware of this situation, feeding on their frustration like evening bats feed on blood to justify their survival in the darkness they constrain themselves. These two stubborn and self-destructive animals were calling for the moment when, in their final breath, on the brink of the most radical loneliness ever, they would count them as their main respective regret. Ah! How mad they were to want to be that wise! And how cowards they were to be aware of it. Thus, human beings enjoy hurting each other rather than letting themselves love without blows.

Yet, in a way, I was envious of what they had. This brief moment in time when I saw their bodies grazing one another, the subtle shiver of their flesh, the missed breath; and then their despair, made anonymous by the gloomy streetcar. They reminded me of something I had read about seconds containing a whole world; a faded memory. Their world had its dark heat, a doomed blaze. I could almost have burnt myself if only I had been seated closer.

Already, the drafts were scattering the embers. He offered her a smile like a charity, a fatalistic cold comfort. She knew better. She knew all that needed to be known, the wisdom of those who flail in the dark. Contrary to him, she was not the passive type, she was not embracing the sacrifice. I could almost hear the echoes of her escape in her muscles, way before she even moved. She was accustomed to run away. Before the pain. Before the trauma. On the other hand, he already had his head on the chopping block, his liver exposed to the black vulture of his masochism. If it was not her, it would be another lover, another member of the bestiary. His guts were ready to be slashed, spread on the sidewalks, some dark blood in the colors of the night. He was ready for violence, not for tenderness. This was useless to him, there was no fuel for him in affection. She was an enigma, even more for me than she was for him; some truth that was withdrawn from my clear-sightedness. Dignified, she stood up and without a last glance, she abandoned him, unsatisfied with the wretched hardship he was embodying.

I hesitated a second then I decided to follow her in the night. The joy and the music were not even tousling her black hair. Her body was stiff and nervous, adopting the en garde position. I was not expecting her to cry but I was surprised, when she turned her face toward me, to see her smile. She did not see me of course. She could not. I was a part of herself she could not contemplate yet. So, I made do with admiring her resolute gait. I knew where she was heading to, a nearby cemetery where she could bury her doubts and reanimate her gashes at her leisure. There was black magic in her heels and I let her go. He had already dissolved in the night, in her thoughts and, to some extent, in mine. His essence was still floating around sometimes, just like a salt spray, suddenly intoxicating but at once already dissipated. He had just been an idea, a flickering illusion. And I was not her anymore.

You may think I am nostalgic all the same, but it is just the delusion of the night. It is shaped for love and for crimes, the repository of all the maddening figments of humanity’s imagination. We are promised warm bodies and cold belongings to clasp, but none of them can shine a light in darkness. I am the one who knows that; she is still learning. It is her turn to disappear, leaving me fully alone within the muted whisper of the city. Everything is gone, finally swept away; when you own nothing, not even a cruel memory, then you are able to hear the pulsation of the future in your veins.