Charcoal, Mirage, Levity

In the winter, when we resort to saving what we can even as we lose the light, letting us slip with it through rough hours like bony fingers, when this time comes and the sun gives in, I feel it in my heavy heart to follow suit, as a spade or jack of clubs in black, lain dead on a patchwork felt table in a gambling room filled with smoke, my promise, my mind, is a charcoal mirage. I need levity to outlight the soot in my oil lamps' glasses, to help me see a way to cut like a gleaming, even killing knife through the night...and then you came to me from out the pitch my dear, and like a whetstone you've made me sharp.