Poetry

Try this, turn on the lights

in a darkened room. 

Now watch the hanging blackness

disappear.

Do it again…

Only this time, pay attention

to the fluid emptiness.

Darker than cold.

Darker than the deep.

It's different than the sheets of night

that are dissolved by the sun

and ruled by the moon.

It moves.

It flees.

It hides.

You can only see it from the corner

of your eyes.

Or in the moments

contained in a blink.

It's felt,

as a shudder across shoulders.

Or like breath on an exposed neck. 

Dread in a heart. 

We knew it instinctively,

primitively,

as children.

When we jumped on the bed

at a run -

avoiding the lightless thing underneath.

We wouldn't go in the cellar

at night.

We kept the closet door closed

and begged for just the tiniest piece

of illumination.

Too terrified of meeting it.

Gaiman understands it

on a microscopic level.

King dances with it

and invites to dinner.

Poe 

is its closest friend.

Like a tragedy on television

that glues us to the screen

as images of violence and gore 

parade by…

I'm just fascinated by it.