In the dark

In the dark I am afraid. When I am laying in bed on my own, looking up at the shadows playing across the ceiling, its hard to not feel the whole world moving swiftly around me. As my mind ranges out into the darkness I hear the house creaking as soft stealthy feet pad along the hall to my room. I hear the wind whispering voices outside my window. I hear the calls of night animals surge and silence with anger and anticipation. This world of muted shadows conceals everything. A whole world of malice painted in silver and grey.
When I am walking through the night, searching for a forgotten bottle in the car or a pet who wont come home, I feel the thick twisting tendrils of fear which trace their way lovingly down my spine. I feel the darkness creep up behind me and in response my muscles tense, my nerves are set on fire and my soul on edge. My body screams for me to run but I know that will only make it worse. The night loves a chase and while the fear tickles close behind me at a walk, it is restrained by my lack of acknowledgement. Once I run it is let loose like a crashing wave of galloping horses and sprinting lions and swooping bats.
There is no peace for me in the dark of night. There is only patient, silent, sleepless fear.

In the dark I am comforted. When I stand in a room with no windows and no light leaking in around the door, its hard not to absorbed into the emptiness of the universe. This dark is so complete. It is a thick wall of nothing pressing in around me. It is a heavy blanket that wraps me up and holds me tight. This kind of dark is nothing. It gives nothing. It conceals nothing. I am nothing.
In this kind of dark I am free. My body is forgotten and my mind is one with the universe, with everything, with nothing. I can feel the energy of this limitless abyss vibrating through me, like the bass at a rock concert.
It fills my head with clear and profound silence. I am completely at peace. One with the darkness around me, with me, within me.
I often wish that this kind of dark could be darker. That it could stretch beyond this single room and out into the rest of the world. I wish that it could fill every space, every open mouth and eye, every cave in the mountains, every pore in everyone's skin. But maybe then it would be less comforting to me. I really just wish that the dark could be so dark, so limitless, so close that I am absorbed into it forever. Then I will be forever dark, forever empty, forever nothing.