AnimalLuving

Darkness is not terrible It is not terrifying Or evil Darkness merely makes beings Tremble It preys on imagination It destroys one from the inside out Darkness waits in the shadows Waiting Waiting to pounce On its next unlucky Victim Darkness The greatest fear of all The problem The evil The plague The destruction The Darkness So terrible But only a figment of imagination Darkness Does not exist Darkness Simply the Absence of Light

i. to the woman who drowned herself in the bathtub: in the magazine I own that published your story, they blurred out the crime scene photographs, erasing your face and the full curves of your breasts. some part of me wonders if you would have wanted this, or if you would have liked for  the public to see you in your final moments, half-soaked in grey-looking water, your hair in strings, glued to the porcelain, eyes closed and mouth gaping, no breath stirring, no bubbles rising. ii. sometimes when I look into the depths of my bathroom sink, I hear your voice (or what I imagine it to be-- after all, we never met). you sit on the edge