And so,

Once again

I’ve put away

Those tediously tiring,

Hypocritical pretenses

And prepared myself for a fall

From the smiles and laughter

And wonder of it all?

At last, I’ve been permitted

To speak and acknowledge it,

Allowed to stop this world

And finally accept it,

See it, reject it

Or perhaps, no more,

Than assimilate to accept it?

Finally, I’ve conceded

To feeling the Darkness

As much as the Light-

If not more, at times,

In times that come to stay,

Unannounced, unexpected

And with much more frequency

Than previously suggested?

 

Can you see me

From the outside

On through to the inside-

Drowning?

Slipping slowly

Beneath the tide,

Washing away

On the waves,

Dissolving

Below the water

In such slow and subtle ways?

 

I had it, for a stay,

Within my grasp

And fooled myself into thinking

That firm footing could anchor me forever

To a space

So bright and clear

That nothing dull

Or darkly austere

Could ever find me,

Tease me

Or wrongly treat me.

Had I grown

So confidently assured

That nothing could rise so high

To drag me down so low?

Down to that dismal place

Without breath to breathe,

Substance to see or

Harmonious heartbeat to hear.

 

And yet,

All along,

Behind the smiles,

I knew you’d return-

For why anchor myself

So tightly to the shoreline

If not in the notion,

However subconscious,

That somehow, someday,

You’d crawl to the surface

And, in a sweeping swoop,

Erase sanity from solace.

In small and subtle shifts-

You’ve secretly

Sucked at my substance,

Though I distinguish you now

More clearly-

I see the darker shadows

You leave in your wake

And the slower motivations

Of my movement

Which you make.

 

So succulently susceptible

To your slyly serpentine ways

Was I, the last time- that first time,

But now, older and worn in,

You no longer slip in

Between the seams unnoticed.

I see you for what you are-

Standing blindly

In all your Darkness,

In the colossal cacophony

You create within my head,

And even in the numbing nothingness

You kneed into me-

I can confidently distinguish you

And your Dark handed distractions

From desires derived

From my own daylight delusions.

You are no longer

Just another side of me-

But another self, entirely-

Despicably dug in,

Deep in the depths-

A deviant dwelling

To distract my days

With Darkness

And Darken my dusk

With Depression.

 

You have settled in

And set up shop,

Trading in nothing more

Than torrents of torment,

Melancholic miseries

And a deluge

Of dejection and desolation-

Filling a basement

With boxed-up beliefs

And packets of possibilities

Placed far out of reach,

My spirit

Left idle and useless

As you file away everything

Valid and vital,

Human and hopeful-

All connection

To confidence and character,

And dress me in foreign forms

Fit for nothing more than

Subservience and surrender.

 

You wish me

A whisper of what I was,

A memory of something

Once lived in

And a ship wreck

That once sailed above the seas

Into which I now slowly sink

As the Light surrenders to the shadow

And all life unwillingly bows to the undertow.

 

And yet,

Before the dawning

Of the Darkest day,

There is still something

Lingering,

Longing and familiar,

Beyond the shadows,

My eyes, as yet,

Unable to certify shapes

But from deep inside

My spirit shakes

And from the corner of my mouth

A smile slowly breaks…