A little Transparency about the Dark and what it Does

Here’s the thing: you may never make it out of this space.

At least, not with those beautiful meanings and honest answers you went in looking for

You may not come out with what you intended to.

You go in, and it’s dark, pretty much pitch black. Damp. and so cold. It’s not what you expected, but still, you’re there and you go further.

You have to do what you set out to do. You have to look for what you set out to find.

So you do.

you look into what you can’t see for sure, you trip often and you definitely stumble.

You feel around corners that you shouldn’t feel around.

you touch your way in some unseen direction, you smooth your hand over what feels like a thing, but you don’t know for sure. It’s so dark who can tell?

But you pull at it anyway. You brush away what you think is dirt,and you pull again.

you keep pulling until a piece snaps off and cuts you. And when it cuts, it cuts deep and black but you keep that piece anyway.

Then you keep looking. You keep searching. In all this effort you lose track of how long you’ve been down there.

The dark get’s even more unbearable and you don’t know what to do.

There’s no sign of which way to go.

Nothing gives.

Your scared now. You think you’ve been there so long you must have been forgotten. But you’re there in full. You’ve done all this work and suffered so much for what you think should be productive.

It should’ve given you something more or changed you in a better way, but it hasn’t

It takes so much you forgot what you were there for in the first place. You start to question whether it was worth it.

What did you need? what did you come for? what did you expect to find?

The facts? that synonym of truth. Something about yourself?

Many have tried before you and failed

Many have died down here. Too many tried to take what they couldn’t see and never made it out

You know this, and it’s get more and more real in the dark. These words keep coming, and they don’t stop

That voiceless voice grows too loud and unbearable. This, you think, is only the truth you’ll find. You can’t take it, all the darkness, all the shit you can’t see, all the things you tried and couldn’t do down here. It drives you insane

so you leave. You make a way out. You escape the dungeon.

It took much and gave too little, but it let you make it back to the safety of the day. That place of certainty and sight.

and you hope it was worth it but you’ll never really know. You left only with that small piece you could break off, but it’s not enough. Not in exchange for what you gave and what you lost there

But what did you get, you ask yourself? what did you find that cut so deep?

It’s hard to describe and even harder to be sure about, but after enough time in the light you realize it’s this:

A memory.

One at first, repressed and unbearable

but physical and certain now after all that work

Then it changes.

it turns into one of those things that makes life bearable

The only thing that makes life bearable

Some days you see it in a dance.

Some days in a novel.

Some days it’s a poem.

Others it’s a song.

But you view your life through this now and it isn’t easy as you expected, but it is an answer.

And it becomes a fact that life is unlivable without it.

So you live with it, happily at times. Morose at others. But necessary now all the same

But not forever.

before you know it you hear that familiar whisper again. Low, at first. and distant. but it grows.

Louder and closer.

louder and closer.

You can’t make out the words it says but feel it’s intention.

Asking you back somewhere you didn’t intend to go.

Pulling you to back to somewhere you don’t want to see.

Dragging you back down to a place that makes life worth living

It’s painful but Inevitable.

First you only hear it in the quiet moments

The silences and respites of rest.

But it gets closer,

it hangs over the hum of traffic to and from work.

Then it gets more intimate,

It’s over and in and under every conversation you have.

and finally, before you realize it, it’s with you everywhere, and you can’t not hear it.

That piece you broke off before you left no longer feels like enough.

You know there’s only one thing to do, and it’s the one thing you don’t want to.

Still, you try to do everything you can to not do it.

All the ways of avoidance you’ve learned

You rationalize against it.

You justify the lack of time for it.

You do everything you can to accept the noise as natural instead.

But there comes a day when you can’t.

It’s too much to bear and before you know it,

you’re right back at the steps to that space again.

and it’s worse.

It’s darker this time

Colder than what you remember.

but for the first time in awhile everything is quiet.

There is no call

no thoughts

No whisper

no noise

There’s only you

and again

the search in some dark place

for meaning and answers.

You tremble, you’d turn around and leave if you could

but you cant.

so you go.

back down into the only place

that makes life worth living.