Still not convinced that the darkness is alive?
Well here's a way to prove it.

Find a cavity or corner layered thickly in shadows
and bring a flashlight.
Watch carefully now,
as you flick on the light.
It's easy to miss,
but if you focus you can see
the shadows skitter into the very edges or flee altogether.
If the room is quiet enough,
you may even hear it scuttling away.

Only a living creature
will scramble and hiss
from the tiniest fragment of light,
and floods back in when the opportunity arrizes.

Hello little red cap!
How are you today?
You've really found a wonderful perch
there across the way.

Do you ever fear that the wind
will take you up and away
against the will and want of your wings,
refusing to let you stay?
Or are you confident that your refusal
will keep its breezes at bay?

It's something I've always wondered at.
Because when I find myself atop a branch
and the wind rushes by where I've sat,
teasing my hair and my dangling legs,
it occurs to me that a well aimed pat
from those ripples in the air
might just send me to a tumble that smashes me flat.
But I guess it would be less of a problem for you
with your feathers and wings and all that.

If you're ever sent flying
you wouldn't have to panic.
You could spread your wings and just go gliding,
riding the ripples wherever they take you
and signing your tune through the tide.

Well, thank you for your insight,
my new feathery friend.
I'll leave you to your trilling now
and bring our conversation to an end.
But I hope your day goes smoothly
and your travels always send
you to places of endless beauty
where soft breezes only mend.

Now, before sleep takes you away
remember to come back. Don't stay.
If you wander too far away,
you'll become prey. You'll become prey.

Too what, you ask? Eyes open wide.
Well the boogeyman and others hide
with grim intentions, in your mind.
Deep, deep inside. Deep, deep inside.

They can do such devilish things.
Make you a puppet on tight strings
over a pit of snakes with wings.
Their hisses sing. Their hisses sing.

To come back, all you've got to do
is give yourself a pinch. Push through
the doors of sleep to a new
sky of pale blue. Sky of pale blue.

Being invisible is fun.
And finding new ways to do it? Even more so.

There are the obvious ways,
like hiding in dumpsters, cupboards, etc.
but those quickly become boring.

Then there are the ones that require a little skill
to truly blend in without attracting attention,
like a waitress, or a café customer, or a vaguely remembered distant cousin at a wedding reception.

​These all can be fun to try your hand at,
I'll admit.
But my new favorite has to be sitting up in the branches of a tall tree
with a notebook and pen,
and having no one even glance up once.
It'll be very useful for future reconnaissance.

There's this dream I have sometimes.

I'm in a big skyscraper-lined city
maybe New York or Chicago, or Gotham
I don't know.

But I'm still mostly me
which is rare in my dreams.

On the outside
I'm completely normal.
No battle scars of some fantastical war
or even strange clothes.

But there is something off about me,
and in the beginning
I can never tell what it is.

Then, I start running.

Because no matter what
there's always someone chasing me.

And my legs start pumping
I pick up speed,
I'm sprinting
my heart thunders
my lungs plead for release
then, I jump.

No, it's not off a cliff or into a hole.
But I do leave the ground
just for a moment
and the airtime feels like a calming breath.

So when I inevitably land,
I jump again
and this time I go higher
like a lengthened stride I go farther.

Soon I'm hopping the gaps between skyscrapers
and landing light as a feather from hundred foot drops.

It's a dream,
so I don't know how long it lasts.
But it's long enough that I get cocky.

I must be superhuman, right?
Whoever had been chasing me
has long been left behind.
There's no way they could have kept up.

I leap again
off the top of the tallest building
with my arms outstretched
embracing the sky.

Then the gunshot
a shrieking impact.

I'm awake again.
And for the next few hours
I have the nearly implacable urge
to run.

A tower of light fades
with each click of a light switch.
Dimmed by the sunlight.

The marbles were all painted to look like eyes
and they glared at anyone who walked in.

Anyone who laughed at them or threw taunts
would have have something terrible and random befall them.
But in the end, everyone always explained it away
and nobody blamed the eyes.

I spent most of my time in the shop ignoring them
and trying not to draw attention to myself.
​Minimum wage and a daily cup of free coffee was not worth getting cursed over.
But I think they were interested in me.

They started appearing in weird places.
The black one with the clouded pupil was on the register.
The purple lopsided one was inside the coffee pot.
​And once I found the cracked gold one between my feet.

They're starting to make me uncomfortable.

When I asked my boss about them today,
she just stared blankly at me.

Glass feels chilly through my jacket.

So I went on a walk today
and the sun was gleaming,
grass was soft beneath my feet.
It was gorgeous.
Then I took out my headphones.

With the sounds of music and podcasts absent,
the whispering wind crept in
with a chirruping sound as company.

As I stood and listened.
More voices emerged.
Individuals chatting amidst the masses,
a cacaphony of conversation.

I don't speak bird, sadly.
But these moments made me wish I could
because at one point
a silence stretched out.
A pause between verses in their song
as if everyone at once took a breath.
Then a single chittering phrase rang out
and with what I can only assume was laughter,
they all joined back in.

It must have been one helluva joke,
because it lasted minutes.
I just hope it wasn't about me.

The chains of fate envelope us all,
each of us tangled in a string
wrapped tightly
and pulled ever onward
towards an inevitable unknown.

Do you trudge along,
head bowed and eyes dragging,
without question and purpose
other than to carry your rings?

Or do you watch the landscape skim by,
recording with your eyes and mind
considering the world around you
and its possibilities?

Just don't be among those who rattle and rave,
fighting the pull and slowing our progress.
Our watchers have little patience
and will not hesitate to tighten your chains
until they crush you to dust
to be trodden over by those behind you.

I'm drowning in piles of notebook paper
all crumpled up
crawling with scribbles crossed out.
Ideas half-born and aborted again and again.
How I miss the day
when my words rang true
and danced upon the page.