I’m not afraid of the dark.
The dark was the place I learned myself.
I bathed myself in it.
In the place where the hot and the cold met.
I understand it.
I understand it’s dangers,
it’s enticements.

I listened to poets and musicians
go on about the romance,
the cruelty, the beauty,
the deepest realities and unrealities
that you will find when dealing with the dark.

I grew up in it.
Grew old.
It doesn’t frighten me.

I’m afraid of the night.
Afraid of the falling sun
and the hours to come.
Afraid of a sleeping world
that I never seem to fully enter,
not without trying.
But I can’t.

My mind is cruelest at night.
The dark behind my closed eyes a welcomed friend.
But not the images that begin to run rampant,
chasing away the dark in such violence
that I’m left scrambling in twisted sheets,
desperately trying to get back to the dark,
desperately trying to get rid of the sights
my own mind reigns down on me.

And how loud everything is at night.
No, not the sounds of a sleeping world.
That’s beautiful.
No, the sound screaming in my ears
comes from a settling world.
A settling mind that has spent the day
using up every inch of normality demanded of it
that, when the night comes,
there is nothing to stop the sounds.
The whispers, the screams, the desperation.
The fingertips clawing at ears, pleading.

Peace, please, just a moment of peace,

This is the hardest part of the fight.
The hardest part of the war,
when daylight fades.
When there is no relief to heal the wounds
that were dealt during the day.

No one to lean on.

No one to catch your fall.

To hear you screaming.

The dark is an old friend because we have spent,
because we do spend,
so much time staring into each other,
because night has come
and it brings the terror of unfettered thoughts.

Of doors slamming shut.

and every skill,
every morsel of knowledge,
of capability,
is tested over and over again,

and I wonder,
each time, as the sun disappears,
the most terrifying thought…

Will I lose to this night?