Are You There Darkness?

Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 12:09am

Alone. So quiet. Yet still I can feel it there. Waiting for me. Taunting me with its reach. I know what it wants and I know what I have to do. Refusing to open my eyes, not able to face what I might see, I huddle in on myself and work the moisture in my mouth to ask a simple question:

"Are you there, Darkness?"

Barely audible, the words seem to die out as they leave my lips, their strength fading once given birth. As if in answer to my pitiful query, I feel the surrounding Darkness press in on me.

"Of course you are," I say to myself. "You’re always there. The real question is- are you listening? For your sake I hope so."

I have spent so many days in fear. Jumping at every little sound and keeping all the lights on. Why, you might ask? A fair enough question, if a rather simple and expected one. The answer is just as simple. Because someone made me fear the Darkness. Someone taught me that it held dangers, and monsters, and that evil lurked in its murky shadow. Someone has tried to make me cower. Someone has conjured an illusion of the world through which to corrupt my senses, my instincts. Someone has threatened that which is most precious to me, hope, and I am here to tell you that you will hold no power over me from this moment forward.

"Do you hear me Darkness?" I asked as my voice gained a little intensity. "No more."

I walk the path of peace not only because of my heart’s flow but because I am not equipped to change you on my own, or anyone for that matter. Do you think that will stop me? Do you think because I am weak and my will often bends to my emotions that you can control me? Make me change who I am as you please?

You must, else you wouldn't have tried so often, but no more. You cannot harm me. You cannot touch me. You will never harm me. For mine is the pursuit of something greater. I will not be deterred. I will not be defeated. I will not allow it.

"Do you hear me darkness?! Well?!"

I can stand up for myself. I can stand tall with my held high and though tears may stain my cheeks I will never falter. You can lash out at me with terrible pain and the scars left behind may last the rest of my life but I will hold up the flesh for all to see as a testament to the triumphs of my cause. I will lay bear my heart to the world and shout "Behold! These are the Paths I have walked and the roads I have taken. These are the wounds I have suffered and the trials I have endured. These are my victories and though they have left me scared, terribly scarred, I have gained from their making through my journeys. That is something the Darkness will never have for the Dark cannot bear the Light of a heart shining through with confidence and belief."

So come for me in the night. Try to shred my thoughts with doubt. I can be scared and that gives me power for what scares my mind and scars my body will only make me stronger. Bend me, burn me, blight me, bleed me. But know with the futility of one doomed that in the end you will never break me.

"Do you hear me darkness? I accept you. I take you into the furthest recesses of my mind and the deepest secrets of my heart. For it is from you that I find my Way to the Light. From you I gain the force of an indomitable will."

I am not the child you once beheld. I neither cling to the safety of the Light of others in desperation nor do I fall into that place from whence you came. I am my own well of courageous temperament and will fear you no longer. I have grown to accept all facets of life and the shadow of this world.

"Do you hear me darkness?" Softly. So very softly now. Soft as a silken sheet sliding across bare steel. "Do you hear me darkness?" I say it for the last time, and my eyes reflect the fires of my heart as endless pools of light. "You are nothing to me. Be gone."

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There is a world that exists beyond what the naked eye can see. Too often we find ourselves relying on our sense of sight as our sole means of perception. I have always thought that the sense of touch was misperceived. We limit our understanding of touch to the physical sensation produced by contact with our skin, yet in my opinion it is so much more. Rather then a sense of touch, I consider it to be a sense of feel. Something that goes beyond the mere physical to include our ability to feel that sensation. Just as a particular sound or smell, for example, can illicit a specific response based on more that just the sound or smell by itself, so it is with the sense of touch, or feel.

In many ways, I consider empathy to be a very present characteristic in humans. As with any other trait, its presence and strength, or lack thereof, varies from person to person. Yet there are people who can literally feel how another person is feeling, and they can establish a bond with the people they interact with. At least, that is what I believe. I also believe that our existence is defined by perceived belief. Something can either be true or false based on whether or not we choose to believe in it, and how strongly we hold that belief. It's as if the world were refracted six billion different ways, each unique to the beholder. What one person sees as a solid truth may be an ephemeral veil of transparency to someone else.

If this is the true, as I believe it to be, then belief becomes one of the defining characteristics of our world as we choose to perceive it. My point, if I have been able to successfully convey it, is that the Darkness as I wrote it above represents the doubt, worry, fears and distractions ever-present in our daily lives. We are the child who is addressing both themself and the surrounding Darkness. The Light, is the clarity of purpose and the determination of will that comes through belief. So when you find yourself staring into the dark abyss, fear not, but embrace the Light through belief. You know it is there, even though you cannot see it. You know it is there, simply because you believe it to be.