Darkness is a thick and tangible thing
The true black can seep into every pore and
Color your soul
It is not the shapes the darkness makes, but
The lack of anything
The nothingness is worse than the something
The darkness where you can’t see your hand
Anyone, anything could be right there and you wouldn’t know it
Straining to grab you
To keep you
Locked inside a little cage

Darkness is foreboding quiet
The noise is swallowed up in the night
Did you hear that tree fall?
But it is not silence
It is a smothering
Like screaming until your
Throat is raw
But never making any sound at all
You know the sound is there
You can feel it

Darkness is a rotten smell
A burnt smell
Your father’s old cigarette butts
Faintly smoking
And a dead creature
Roadkill
Sickly sweet

Do you taste that?
You can taste the fear
Darkness, true blackness tastes like metal
Metallic blood in the back of your throat
Last night’s dinner, emerging again
As bile
Thick and wet like spit

Darkness is shortness of breath
High up on the mountain
Chest constricting
Every breath draws in
Thick black smoke
It’s like filling up a balloon
But this is not helium
It makes you heavy

Sink into the dark
Slip away

It is not like closing your eyes
You close your eyes
But there are no dancing colors
No sense of light
Or anything

You close your eyes,
And you are gone