Midnight Crossing

Her white, aged, sun spotted hands were shaking
His black, young, ring laden fingers were baking
She had stopped to get gas and the clock had struck midnight
He had stopped to get gas and was headed to “set things right”
She tried not to make eye contact as he walked by holding up his pants
He smiled and thought about the 38 he’d use to “bring some music to the dance”
She did her best to ignore the thunderous beat, the vile lyrics emanating from his car
He didn’t know, as he walked on by her, that they both shared horrendous scars
Her father had been an alcoholic, a sadistic bastard who beat her and her mother
His Mother had been a junkie whore whose boyfriends stubbed cigarettes on him and his brother
She shot that Bastard long, long ago, yet she still remembered well
He decided not so long ago just how he’d deal with his past hell
One, knowing nothing of the other, under moonless midnight, rushed to take flight
Two, separated by time and circumstance, embraced a bullet to cure a barbarous plight
She only put in half a tank, jumped in her car and caught her breath
He only put in half a tank, then checked his gun before his rendezvous with death
Her hands had stopped shaking in the fifteen minutes that it took to reach her drive
His fingers had stopped baking in the fifteen minutes for the simple reason he was no longer alive
Her white, aged, sun spotted hands were slightly shaking with the morning paper read
His black, young, ring laden fingers were no longer baking as he lay on a slab, eight hours dead
In a world inhabited by over six billion souls, their paths had crossed on a single night
She’d lived, though old, to see the sunrise…He’d died, though young, just after midnight