We sat in the shadows together

and I couldn't understand their fear

so I curled my knees to my chest and thought

I was different, separate from everyone

and it felt a little bit nice

to be alone

in the dark

with their quick breaths and

squeals of delighted fright.

And I would stay there after they had all

gone, too shaken by the terror

they egged on in each other's

stomachs like cake they

had eaten too much of together,

giggling with the thrill of it as they ran

back up the stairs, into the

jittery electric lights.

And I would stay there, a while.

Until some adult came and

turned on the light, as if

I would have wanted that, thinking

I was sad, maybe, or didn't

want to be alone anymore

(why did adults never seem to understand?)

and the light was always so

bright and terrible

like it was laughing at my

tired, weak eyes

and I would close them tight but

it would still leak in

and when I rejoined the others

playing in the brightly lit

space that others filled

I felt

even more alone

and it didn't feel so good

anymore.

Until I slipped my way back in

to the world of the living and

took my place as the bossy one,

as my eyes forgot how nice the

darkness was.

My son’s favorite game when he was very little was hide-and-seek. It was fun for me, too. I would wander around the house, calling out his name while he stood in a corner of a room, giggling quietly…with his eyes tightly closed. Where is Anka? I would say, worry tingeing my voice. Oh my goodness? Where can Anka be? Soon, of course, he would say, full of glee as only a child can be, here I am, Mommy! You couldn’t find me!

How invigorating to have such control over your world: merely close your eyes and disappear into a warm, dark world of your own making...

That darkness? The one in which you find yourself when you close your eyes? That darkness can be blissful. At any moment of the day, you can block out every sensation, submerge yourself in a comforting cocoon.

A blanket of stillness

will envelop you,

calm the mind

heal a weary body

soothe a fractured spirit.

If only for a moment.

Need a minute? Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Embrace the darkness.

at first-

it's a blanket

wrapping me,

surrounding me,

quieting my turbulent

thoughts

but then it

grows into

a monster

and the isolation

is

too much

Darkness seeps in the cracks, like the ceramics class you promised yourself you would take, tried once, and left to go do other, more imporant, things.

I stare into my computer screen and flip my pillow over to the cold side. There's no happiness in this life except what makes our dopamine receptors go forward towards the light. The dark side is a cracked coffee pot, or is it the lack of caffeine that keeps us addicted?

In this world, my mother said nothing is certain except death, love, and taxes. If cigarettes make your lungs turn black, does their sex appeal count towards love, or death?

Darkness doesn't creep in, it attacks you like a Picasso painting. It gets absorbed by your synapses in more mundane moments, like taking out the trash or doing the dishes. The analog clocks that we have all shunned in favor of iPhones have hands that grab. Toddlers run around screaming, and their sticky touch brings us back to childhood, or why else do people have children? They will grow up and shun us, and we will have lived to provide for what bites our hands.

We live in between the moments of realization that we are finite beings on a finite planet. Time is watching from across the room, and it doesn't like you. It wants you to hurry up and reproduce. We absorb time's gaze and accept the chores, the duties, the endless refrains of society. We are passionate to find what lights us up outside of our daily lives.

Darkness is perhaps inside black holes, where reality crouches. We are waiting for the light to suck us in, but until then, we must get dressed, brush our teeth, and live.

The darkness is powerful. If there is hope left in darkness, it will be found in its strength. Anything is possible in the dark; that is why it is feared, and that is why it is revered. The dark is neither good nor evil, neither right nor wrong, but everything illuminated is painted with those colors. As long as something is in the darkness, it remains what it truly is - before judgements, before politics, before perception itself paints the object in a false light. Darkness is honesty, at the cost of revealing nothing; it is honesty about honesty itself.

There’s this god awful smell

And it’s coming from inside

I think I’m rotten at the core

Rotten as can be

I slit a vein just to know

What’s living inside

Bubbling to the surface all I found

Was a wave of sewage pouring out of me

Rotten, broken, sick

There’s nothing I can do

Sitting with myself

In a cage of flesh and bone

There’s only one escape

I slit a vein and wait

I let all the garbage seep away

But all I am is this stink inside

If you drain it all away you’ll find

Nothing left behind

If I can find a way

A way out of this place

I’d find my home in hell

A rotting filthy putrid place

It’s the hole where I belong

So dying here so fucking slow

I know

There’s nothing left behind

i don't like the light

where every spot on my body is lit up

every imperfection becomes a wave

threatening to swallow me.

in the dark i can hide,

safe from my body,

hidden from dysphoria.

in the dark, i can live,

vibe with the stars.

in the dark, the struggles of daylight

seem far away.

in the words of Shel Silverstien,

"we all look the same when we turn out the light."

and i'm ready to turn out the light

and live in darkness

forever.

Dark.

To me this is a comforting thing. The silence and still that comes with it is something that I crave. The sweet assurance that I won’t be heard or seen makes me feel like I can be myself. The moon usually comes with the dark and that thought always sparks a hum of excitement in me. The quiet beauty of the stars helps to calm my anxiety. It’s as if they are calmly watching over me, promising me they will always be there again the next night.

Sometimes I hide away in a closet just so I can feel that peace a certainty that comes with the dark. To me, the dark is a friend...

Plus, and most importantly, I have sensitive skin and the sun never fails to leave me with serious sunburns, so I don’t really have a choice. It’s either be in pain for weeks, or make friends with the darkness.

"Your mother called, she says she's worried."

She says, not she is. Harry notes the deliberate wording and sighs.

"I am sure," He says and despite how he tries, it's hard to get the bitterness out of his voice. Lando levels his look, he feels the prickle of it burning on the side of his face. It doesn't matter if he can't see his face, he just knows that Lando is making a face at him. Just as he knows he's staring.

It's not supposed to be as comforting as it is. It isn't suppose to make the knot in his chest loosen, but it does.

Familar, something he knows, can be certain in. He hasn't that since the surgery and woke up to completely darkness and learned that his world is going to stay that way. Only uncertainty, and a sea of faces and voices, he doesn't know and a long, long day that never seems to end.

"At least you get the hoard of sweets out of it," Lando says after a while, a little dry but Harry can hear the hint of a smile in his voice.

It makes his lips curl, and scoot closer to his friend. Lando makes a sound, exasparated, and done. Harry startles, jerks up but Lando loops an arm around and pulls him straight in to lean into the dip of his shoulder.

"You don't need to hesitate about that, idiot," He says, fond, threading his fingers through his hair. "You always know I have space for you."

Harry tries to make his mouth, to say something. Preferably, scream or something. He can't manage anything but bury his red face further into Lando's shoulder, his heart turning in his chest from how he ached for this type of contact, after everything. In this sudden darkness, Lando's fingers in his hair making soft motions and the weight of him beside him, real, it's everything.

His throat narrows and he chokes up, a little.

He reaches a hand out and fumbles around for a while, but manages to catch the edge of his friend's shirt, and tightens his fingers around it.

Thank you.

"Yeah, I got it," Lando drops a quick kiss to his forhead to which Harry protests at but warmth is curling tightly around his bones at the gesture, the feel of a smile pressed to his skin, and he can't quite stop the grin, either.