The darkness of the night crowds in

and I’m left alone with grinning spectres

plaguing my twilight hours and my uncomfortable state

of mind, fragile, insistent, running so fast

that smoke billows out and only one idea in a million

sees the dawn and breathes deeply

at surviving

another unseen, obscure dusk.

 

I want to scream, so drawn to the darkness

that envelopes me, that barely a whisper of mortal love

for the shadows and the fog crosses my cracked open mouth

and the declaration of irresistible devotion

is audible,

for the darkness is keen eared and my lips are dry.

 

Carry me forth

and conceal the darkness into a tight unbreakable casket,

let it be padlocked and welded tight so the darkness

cannot breath and then let it

die,

let it wither,

turn to dust,

evaporate

and slowly, peacefully be

no more.

 

Someone though will always find a key

to unlock my terror and my ghosts ships of fire

and the darkness never truly shrinks away

away from the light,

it just finds a corner in which to nestle,

waiting, planning, plotting and hating

and like the ugly battered moth, scared, singed and its wings

shredded, it comes out every so often

to annoy and frighten once more.

 

‘Tis better that I lock myself into the casket,

let Pandora guide you through the process

of how to survive the darkness and all her own

miseries, for the witch is unstoppable

and I am safer

locked in here

than out there with you

in the light.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015